| Outcome/accomplishment:
The Quality of Life Technology (QoLT) Engineering Research Center (ERC)
worked with partners to expand QoLT's Pittsburgh-based flagship youth-outreach
program, Tech-Link, to Minneapolis.
Impact/benefits:
The QoLT ERC, funded by NSF, offers middle school students an opportunity
to participate in Tech-Link, an immersive learning and mentoring program
that guides dozens of students with disabilities toward careers in science,
technology, engineering, and math. In 2009 and 2010, Tech-Link students
in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis used the internet to discuss their robot
designs and practice their presentations leading up to the FIRST Lego League
competition.
Explanation/ background:
In 2009, QoLT worked with a Pitt Rehabilitation Science and Technology
alumnus and the Courage Center in Minneapolis (a center that offers rehabilitation
services, help for people to obtain assistive technology, and outreach
activities for people with disabilities) to replicate QoLT's Tech-Link
program in Minneapolis. QoLT is headquartered at Carnegie Mellon
University and the University of Pittsburgh.
Each fall, approximately
two dozen middle school students with and without disabilities participate
in Tech-Link’s three-month “camp” in which they learn about programming,
teamwork and engineering. The students work in teams supervised by professional
engineers, college students, and peer mentors—many of whom are themselves
Tech-Link alumni—to build robots for the FIRST Lego League competition.
In addition, they participate in activities ranging from one-day mentoring
visits to technology labs and clinical research labs, to extended internship
experiences in corporate settings, at government agencies, and at academic
institutions.
For the 2009 and 2010 dual-location
Tech-Links, the Pittsburgh and Minneapolis campers communicated with one
another via the internet, using it to discuss their robot designs and practice
their presentations for the culminating FIRST Lego League competitions. |
