New Bedford Research & Robotics (NBRR) understands how critical the city’s youth is to New Bedford’s resurgence. That’s why we’ve taken the lead in STEA3M initiatives at local middle schools. We’ve worked closely with our institutional partners to create experiences that align with Massachusetts curriculum standards and engage students in the reiterative design process, where mistake-making is an integral part of creative thinking and problem-solving.

This year, we were thrilled to collaborate with Our Sisters’ School and Nativity Prep on the Design Challenge, where students showcased their creative and computational talents. During this hands-on event, learners developed their critical thinking, collaboration and communication skills through a series of design challenges, utilizing frontier technologies.

Students became designers and engineers for the day and took their roles seriously. They familiarized themselves with technology language, coded and programmed robots and collaborated with peers to engineer a mini-golf course and design and build an end effector to help the robot complete tasks.

We’re so proud to share with you this example of what New Bedford’s young adults are achieving and give you a glimpse of what their bright futures hold.

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