This was one of the most meaningful projects we have ever done. 

Problem Statement:

Kids who are going in and out of the hospital due to treatments and check-ups barely have any of the opportunities and experiences we do. 

Solution:

Should bring STEAM and FIRST experiences to them. Not only to help them find new interests and clubs, but also to help raise their general well-being.

Steps:

1. First created a list of questions based on constraints, requirements, expectations, what has worked/not worked in the past. We reached out to child specialist Leslie Scott at Children’s Hospital and she answered all our questions.
2. We created a proposal plan for our first session. We presented this to the child specialist team at Children’s Hospital.
3. Bought the kit in our proposal plan, and sanitized it. 
4. Created presentations we would share at the event. We created a presentation about how lights and motors work so the kids will be able to understand the kits. We also created a presentation about FIRST to teach kids/parents all about it.
5. Using the presentations and the kit we created a video. This is mainly for virtual kids who are unable to attend the session we would be doing. It has the exact same schedule and process as what we would do in-person it was just pre-recorded.
6. We did many practice runs with kids on this FTC team and gathered feedback.
7. Finally, on Novemeber 22nd we had our first session from 3-4pm.

Impact:

We have delivered 7 in-person sessions and had around 70 patients use our kits and training video.  We are the first robotics team to be invited back to host more STEAM Workshops for inpatients at Children’s Hospital and have been asked by the hospital staff to come on a bimonthly basis. At the suggestion of Children’s specialists, we are planning a STEM Fair for Childhood Illness Survivors.  We may further expand to outpatient clinics and camps in the summer. We will likely bring in FLL and FTC robots in future sessions. The kids will be able to program it, watch it perform missions, collaborate, and have fun. Also, recently one of the main kids, Bella, who we have always seen at these STEM events and grown to adore has been discharged! She was able to recieve a heart transplant and is now doing great! The doctors said that her recovery has some credit given to all the time she spent at the Child Life Center!

Future Steps:

Our next steps would be to have more sessions as soon as possible. Next time, instead of a kit we will bring in the FLL EV3 Robot. It is easier to program, easier to learn, and very fun in general or kids. We also will reach out to more doctors at Children’s Hospital, such as Dr. Karst an oncologist, and hopefully get another outreach opportunity with more kids.