Intelligence is Not Artificial at John Adams Middle School

The John Adams Middle School "RoboVikings" squad is among just a few Middle School robotics teams competing over the past year with students from 7th through 12th grade. For the second year in a row, the team is advancing to the LA Regional Competition this Saturday in Monrovia.

"Last weekend, in Palmdale, the RoboVikings won the prestigious "Connect" Award for educating their peers, parents, teachers and the Santa Monica community about robotics, the First Tech robotics competition and the value of STEM education. JAMS - John Adams Middle School features a science magnet program that all of the RoboVikings participate in. Our team is uniquely gender balanced with an equal number of boys and girls," writes Ruben Aronin RoboVikings Mentor and parent volunteer.

A local neighborhood frozen yogurt shop - TREATS - was a big part of the "Connect Award" because they donated $300 dollars worth of frozen yogurt cups for our team to sell to help get the word out about our team. The RoboVikings also have brought the robot to all the Santa Monica elementary school science nights to get 5th graders excited about STEM education.

Background

The RoboVikings team formed in 2015 at John Adams Middle School in Santa Monica, California. The RoboVikings team is comprised of seventh and eighth grade members of the Santa Monica Science Magnet, which offers special instruction and programming to JAMS students who complete extra science curriculum to collect points and participate in the magnet program. We are the first school in our school district to compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge program.

"This is big step for our school," JAMS Principal Steven Richardson said. "Beyond the alignment to 21st century skills, this pilot program will expose our students to the iterative engineering design cycle." Our team coach is an accomplished Mission Chief Engineer with JPL/NASA, and a professor at UCLA. Our team mentors have expertise in programming, mechanical engineering and biological and physical sciences. .