We’re excited to be able to present another dedicated educator with an EdTech grant. For the month of January, we’ve selected Kern Kelley, a middle school teacher from RSU 19 in Newport, Maine as the recipient! Among all of the thoughtful and well-written submissions we received, Kern’s stood out to us due to the connections it had to the true spirit of the Maker Movement. Kern and his students have a very innovative project idea in mind and we’re very excited to be able to play a part in bringing their selfless and creative idea to life.
Kern works with students who he describes as some very active problem seekers at Nokomis Regional Middle School in Newport, which is located in the center of the state of Maine. Not only do his students actively identify problems, they work to find innovative solutions to them. So, when they kept noticing their school’s custodian struggling to clean lunch tables quickly enough, they made it a point to find a way to help him. Before long, they came up with the idea for building a ‘CleanBot,’ which would essentially mimic the popular Roomba cleaning robot and be used for a similar purpose—just in the school cafeteria!
In taking on the challenge of building this robot themselves, Kern’s students tried their hand at 3D printing some of the robot’s components, but needed additional pieces to tie it all together. They needed to make sure that they found a solution that would allow the robot to move freely enough that it would cover the entire surface area of each table without, of course, falling off the edge. They even designed virtual simulations to test how this would work and decided they’re ready to try building this kind of robot for real!
Kern and his students worked together to find a STEAM-based solution that would include the right kinds of parts they need in order to make this work. So, for his award, we’re going to be providing him with a SAM Labs Maker Kit, which fits in perfectly with the award amount of $500. The kit includes the types of motors and sensors that Kern’s students were looking for and they’ll be able to use them to build the kind of machine they want. Both the students he has now and students he’s observed in the past have shown great creativity when it comes to maximizing STEAM tools and Kern has little doubt that this group will be able to do the same using the Maker Kit.
Ultimately, Kern hopes to use this opportunity to show his students that they can improve the everyday challenges that people in their families, schools, or communities face. With something that seems like such a no-brainer solution, Kern expects that his students will be able to make a big impact on their school’s custodian, which is what the spirit of the Maker Movement is all about: Using the tools available combined with your own ingenuity to solve a solvable problem. Beyond that, once Kern’s students have their robot built and ready to use, they also want to publish its specs, code, and STL files so that students in schools everywhere could use it as a blueprint for creating something similar!
It goes without saying, but we were genuinely impressed with the spirit Kern described his students as having. We’re excited to be able to provide him with our grant award for the month of January and to get the Maker Kit in the hands of his students as soon as possible. To keep up with any updates from Kern and his students, be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram. If you would like to apply for our grant award for the month of February, the application is now open. The deadline to apply is Feb. 20 and you can apply for it here.