Robotics and computer science are rapidly growing industries, especially here in Silicon Valley. High schools around the area are creating programs and clubs that inspire and provide students with an outlet to learn and participate in robotics. This is the first year Lincoln High School has offered a robotics class and they have already participated in a few workshops.

Leland and Lincoln robotics teams collaborated during October break to mentor elementary and middle school students on robotics from Bachrodt, Grant, Hacienda, Trace, Hoover, John Muir,  Bret Harte, and Leland. This is the second greatly successful Robotics event since August 2017 among the San Jose Unified School District. This workshop was also in collaboration with Univision’s UTEC, with whom we have an excellent partnership. 16 of the mentors at this event were from within San Jose Unified School District. Those 16 students were among the 50 and counting who signed up to volunteer: robotics and STEM are in high demand. In light of this growing interest, UTEC is going to expand the courses next fall.

For an industry in silicon valley that is dominated with white men, this growing school program provides all students with an advancement in the field. The participants are 81% Latino, 13% Mixed races, 6% White and 44% Female.​  

The leader of the Lincoln Robotics team, Nancy Reid says “Our high school volunteers are world class leaders and mentors for our younger students.  The student participants are very engaged and motivated.”

The robotics team programs their robots to do many different functions including, grabbing a loop, retrieving a broken chair and bowling. Their robots parts are made from 3D printers we supply here at school.

Mrs. Reid is working alongside Mr. Shen as they broaden opportunity for their students Mrs. Reid says she hopes to expand the program and provide more curriculum and opportunity for students as the programs grow. She also hopes to motivate girls and minorities to join and take a step into engineering.

Robotics and computer science at Lincoln has offered an abundance of exposure and experiences for aspiring engineers.  “Bringing awareness, these are the possibilities and that’s the first step…exposing them to engineers and visiting Berkeley; we’re doing a field trip so that they can talk to college students and professors. We’re gonna be visiting Microsoft.”

This coming week, first week of December is Computer science week, consisting of field trip and movie nights. Don’t miss it!

Monday Dec 4th :  3:15 to 5:30  Showing Hidden Figures and serving Pizza (Lincoln Center)

Tuesday Dec 5th:  Berkeley Trip.  40 students heading to Berkeley from 6:30 to 5:30

Wed Dec Dec 6th:  Family Night Code: Hour of Code in Spanish and English 5 to 6:30 (Lincoln Center

Thursday Dec 7th:  VR Demo in Room 3 from 3:15 to 4:45pm

Friday Dec 8:  Field Trip to Microsoft Store