Special to The Michigan Catholic | Mike Horan

Detroit — Five students at the University of Detroit-Jesuit High School are again taking their knowledge in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math (S.T.E.M.) to younger students at local Catholic middle schools through a robotics mentoring program.

The mentoring program is in its third year, said Peter Guenther, robotics program coordinator at UD-Jesuit, and comes on the heels of a $17,000 grant awarded to the school over the summer from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to help fund its robotics and pre-engineering program for 2014-15.

“It started when a couple of our juniors in class were looking at some of the issues facing Detroit, and one of the issues they had identified was the lack of technical knowledge and the lack of people with the skills necessary for the jobs that are coming to the city,” Guenther said. “As part of their class project, these two robotics students came up with the idea of reaching out, doing some robotics mentoring to fill some of that need and to get younger students interested in technical things.”



The students this year, Brendan Hand, Matthew Walton, Marcus Lee, Nathan Speir and Job Gumma, use the mentoring program to satisfy their senior service requirement at UD-Jesuit, but in return are making an impact in youngsters’ lives and getting them familiar with the S.T.E.M. field.

“These students take on a little bit more than the normal senior service program because they’re committing to doing a little extra work and preparation outside of class,” Guenther said. “But in return, they get a program where they’re much more leaders and really growing something in the students they work with. This gives them a lot more initiative and certainly a lot more responsibility.”

The schools the students mentor, Christ the King and Gesu in Detroit, are working toward their own upcoming competition, an annual robotics festival which also includes a robotic bowling competition. Once a week, the five students from UD-Jesuit go to the younger schools and help mentor the building and programming of robots for the competition.

“They’re starting to work on Robofest, an international robotics competition,” Guenther said. “This year’s game is robot bowling, and they’re starting to work on specifics for the robot to get it to accomplish the task it needs to.”

Ka’Ron Reason, a student at Christ the King who hopes to one day be an engineer working on cars, believes the mentors and the robotic program are a game-changing opportunity.

“This program brings on a lot of responsibility,” Reason said. “Not only is it a good opportunity for me to learn how to program and build, it brings on leadership so when I go to high school I have the qualifications to help me with my background. This really means a lot.”

Though the UD-Jesuit mentors can’t work on the robots themselves, they offer their knowledge and support to the students to help them build the best possible robot.

“We’ve went through some of the programming and moved on to building and explained a strong and weak build,” said Hand, one of the student mentors. “It’s been interesting. They’ve contributed a lot and I’ve been amazed by that. All of the designs are theirs. I’m impressed at how well they’re doing.”

Kim Little, a science teacher at Christ the King, said her students wouldn’t be where they are today in the S.T.E.M field without the student mentors, but it’s much more than that.

“It’s fantastic because these guys really know what they’re doing and they’re acting as mentors and role models for these kids,” she said. “Exposure to different applications like science and technology and math, absolutely, but it’s true mentoring from the guys that come from the high school that show the kids, model for the kids, act as role models for the kids.”

While the mentoring certainly helps students at Christ the King and Gesu grow, Guenther believes the opportunity to mentor and teach is beneficial for the UD-Jesuit students, too.

“Our students, it gives them a chance to work on interpersonal skills and learning how to teach, learning how to work with younger people,” he said. “Certainly, responsibility and just the pride of kids to succeed and grow based on the work that they’re doing.”

Come late March, the students competing in the Robofest competition at Lawrence Technological University will have one goal.

“When we get to Robofest, our goal is to win,” Reason said. “I just want to get through the whole course, knock down the pins and give it our best effort.”