A STEM Pathway of Courses for K-12 with Robotics, Coding, and NGSS Engineering

Students love robots, their parents love STEM career options, and schools are finding their classes fill up fast with the Exploring Robotics STEM Pathway. Let us help your school offer a STEM K-12 pathway, or fill in the gaps for the grades that don't currently have STEM solutions.

All students need to understand coding and technology for STEM careers. If districts wait till high school, it's too late; students will have already chosen their career options. When students are introduced to fun coding and robots in K-8 they are more likely to choose math and science courses in high school. This pathway of courses helps districts to incrementally teach coding and STEM concepts from elementary through middle and high school. It prepares students to enter college ready to become the technicians and engineers who are creating and supporting new SMART technologies for homes, medicine, and industry. 

Our mission is to find engaging robots that are rugged to stand up to classroom abuse, and then develop excellent supplemental curriculum to go with them that follows the 5E instructional model, and is aligned to standards.  We help solve STEM problems by offering a turn-key solution of products and services to schools (public and private). We have solutions for every grade from K to 12 with STEM kits and robots for Every student. 

Grades K-5 (Elementary) Courses:

• Exploring Robotics with Cubelets
• Exploring Robotics with Dash-Dot
• Exploring Robotics with Ozobot
• Exploring Inventions with littleBits STEAM
• Exploring Robotics with GoPiGo: Scratch and Pi

Grades 6-8 (Middle School) Courses:

• Exploring Robotics with Scribbler
• Exploring Inventions with GrovePi and Scratch
• Exploring Drones and Hovercrafts with Airblock
• Exploring Robotics with Electronics and Boe-Bot
• Exploring Robotics with Engineering and Boe-Bot

Grades 9-12 (High School) Courses:

• Exploring Robotics with Electronics and Boe-Bot
• Exploring Robotics with Engineering and Boe-Bot
• Exploring IoT with GrovePi and Python
• Exploring Robotics with Boe Shield and Arduino
• Exploring Mobile Security Robots with Xplore Bot

Students will learn:

• Computational thinking and algorithms
• Robots and control systems
• Programming: Scratch, Blockly, Basic, Python, and C
• Engineering Design and Inventing
• Microcontrollers: Raspberry Pi, Arduino, ATmega, Parallax
• Reading schematic diagrams and building DC Circuits
• Bread-boarding, troubleshooting, & systems thinking
• Real World Applications of Technology

Why Implement A K-12 STEM Pathway with Robots?

Students gain the foundation knowledge needed to pursue STEM careers with CS coding, NGSS engineering, and applied Math and Science. They invent things and also learn the fundamentals of electronics using fun kits with Arduino, Raspberry Pi and other control systems. A college and career component provides information about STEM careers and activities to inspire students to pursue possible STEM career paths.

• We make it easy for non-technical teachers to include STEM and robots in their class by providing online self-paced lessons with videos and step-by-step instruction for teaching the tough coding and engineering topics.
• We work with your IT department to match the robots to the school's technology: tablets, Chromebooks, or computers. So teachers have more success and less frustration with technology.
• The supplemental curriculum and turn-key packages can be used in classrooms and after-school programs. It can be shared by STEM, Science, Math, and ELA teachers, media specialists, and librarians; enhancing collaboration among teachers and staff.
• Teachers can count on us for personalized PD via video conference that fits into their schedule, and on-going technical support. We don't leave them hanging to figure it out on their own.

The mobile robots in the pathway mimic the features of those used in warehouses, factories, security, hospitals, and NASA. Students control and operate robots and apply coding to solve real world situations. They build prototypes using 3D printers.  Students also learn aerodynamics and hydrodynamics principles with a drone and hovercraft. Finally, the security robot ties it all together, and is a great capstone project with a robot that is driven around with a camera and arm using multiple control systems working together, with systems that being used in automated vehicles. 

With this pathway, your students are prepared to enter college or technical schools with a strong foundation in Engineering and Computer Science concepts.

Budget Friendly Features:

• Most classroom packages are under $5,000 for a class of 20 to 30 students.  
• The kits are rugged and can be used for multiple classes over several years. Some have been used by schools for 5+ years.
• All curriculum is online, video-based, self-paced lessons for terms or semesters. Students can access lessons from any device.
• Very minimal materials costs. Spare parts are typically less than $50 per class.  
• Instructor PD is included via video conference – does not require teachers to travel or miss school days.
• Technical support is included to get set up and started and to answer questions as they arise.
• CTE and STEM funding can be used by most schools (some states require teachers to have CTE credentials to qualify for funds). Schools have also raised community funds for these programs.
• Some schools charge students a lab fee to cover cost of robots or kits, and let the students take the robots home.