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Wellesley College welcomes public back to its observatory

November 17, 2022 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

One great thing about being in a college town like Wellesley is that the schools have unique resources accessible to the public. Wellesley College has relaunched its public nights at its Whitin Observatory, where you can stare into space using their powerful telescopes. The next rain-or-shine event is Saturday, Nov. 19 from 7-9pm.

The event will feature student talks, activities for all ages, and tours of the telescopes.

New protocols introduced since the COVID-19 pandemic include that all visitors must register in advance.

Contact Kylie Hall with questions.

There is no longer public parking at the observatory. Visitors must park in the Davis Parking Facility and walk to the observatory. There are accessible parking spaces located behind the science center (more on this at accessibility@wellesley.edu).

I think the last time we visited the observatory for an event was to check out an eclipse in 2017. That was great fun.

Wellesley Eclipse


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Filed Under: STEM, Wellesley College

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Wellesley Hackathons coming up for ages 5 – 14+

April 13, 2021 by admin Leave a Comment

The Wellesley Education Foundation has partnered with two Wellesley coding companies—iCode and Code Ninjas—who are offering Hackathons for students to enjoy. Hacks are broken into age groups and themes and students can participate in one hack per company.

DATES OF HACKATHONS: April 24th & 25th

ADDITIONAL  DATES: To set everyone up for success, workshops and office hours take place before the Hackathon, April 13th – 23rd.

Here are all the details for each of the Hackathon options.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Education, STEM, Technology

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Wellesley HS grads zooming back to talk about life in STEM fields

April 10, 2021 by admin Leave a Comment

Wellesley, STEM panel discussion


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Filed Under: Beyond Wellesley, Education, STEM, Technology

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Here’s how to get a look at Wellesley robotics team’s awesome robot

April 8, 2021 by admin Leave a Comment

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STEM supporters: How to advertise on The Swellesley Report

Filed Under: Careers/jobs, Clubs, Education, STEM, Technology

At Wellesley High, you can’t have too many robotics clubs

January 9, 2021 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

When Wellesley High School junior Rachel White gave us a heads up about a robotics club she launched this past spring with fellow student Ethan Chen, I was surprised that the school didn’t already have one. White quickly clarified for me that indeed the school already had a robotics club that participates in Botball competition—but the new club focuses on FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition.

“An [FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC)] robot presented us with a really exciting opportunity to design, build, and code a 125-pound robot,” says White, who has compiled an impressive range of robotics knowledge via classes at Wellesley High and Wellesley Middle School, participation in the Botball club, and five years of robotics summer camp.

The FIRST club, which started with six students in May, now has 27 members. So the appetite for more opportunities in this field are apparent.

“We were inspired to create an accessible and equitable team to increase the diversity of students in STEM activities, and open it to all no matter their background or experience with robotics,” says White, who notes that only 10%-20% of the students in her engineering and computer science classes/clubs are girls. The Wellesley Robotics Team (WRT) is 50% girls.

White and other students are urging Wellesley High’s administration to add a robotics course that goes beyond the Botball and Lego Mindstorm topics included in existing courses. Who knows, maybe that will inspire even more robotics and STEM clubs in the future at the school.

Wellesley Robotics Team
Photos courtesy of Wellesley Robotics Team

 

Building the robot

The Wellesley Robotics Team has been designing, building, and coding a prototype robot since October that White says “we have fun driving around!”

While you can choose to take part in many tasks in the FRC game, Wellesley’s team has focused on one:  shooting a 7-inch ball into an 8-foot-high goal. The competition will take place virtually in January and February.

Wellesley Robotics Team

The Wellesley club has been meeting on Zoom for the past seven months, White says,  to learn about the robot control board, electrical wiring, Java programming, CAD (Computer Aided Design), mechanical design, tool safety, and material use.

Building the robot in person has been more challenging, though they’ve been fortunate to have access to a team member’s garage, which has been outfitted as a shop.

“We meet in person several days a week so that no more than six people at a time are in our build space due to our COVID protocols,” White says. “With only six people in at a time, it can be hard to make progress, but we are persevering and pushing forward with our work.”

Club cofounders White and Chen also have plenty of other activities to keep them occupied. White’s a student representative to the School Committee and a WHS Student Congress member, while Chen is a swim team captain, co-leader of the New Student Ambassadors, and a member of the Keynote singers. 

Among the club’s mentors is Brian Kelly, who teaches robotics at Wellesley Middle School, but parents also help out a lot, as do mentors from FRC teams around the state. The Wellesley Robotics Team is always looking for mentors to help with coding, CAD, and mechanical design/build tasks.  

Kelly says it’s been a pleasure to mentor the club members given that most were in one or more of his classes during their time at the middle school. “It is a hard working, focused, and enthusiastic group who has taken on quite a challenge, not the least of which is organizing a workspace and schedule to maintain as safe an environment as possible during this pandemic,” he says.

“They are getting tremendous support from parents and I have been impressed by the forward thinking on the part of both students and parents, in the sense that they are very much focused, not only on their particular challenges for this team, this season, but also on the teams that will likely follow,” Kelly says.

The club members and parents are “building a foundation for students and the parents who will also find themselves inspired and engaged by the challenges of building a robot that actually does what one wants it to do. It ain’t easy…,” he says.

FIRST robotics teams are sponsor funded, and Wellesley’s team (Team Ultraviolet #8765) thanks MathWorks, Eliassen Group, NASA, FIRST, and Lowe’s for their support. Anyone interested in sponsoring or learning more about the nonprofit can email wellesleyFRC@gmail.com or check out its website.


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Filed Under: STEM, Wellesley High School

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Rick Cram, leader

Wellesley camps & programs 2020 — find a great summer experience

July 18, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

iCode of WellesleyThe Swellesley Report’s Summer Camps & Programs page lists over 75 camps and programs in Wellesley and beyond. It’s time to sign your child up for a great summer experience. Whether they’re into coding, arts and crafts, sports, drama, or nature, the perfect camp is out there for them.

Swellesley’s Summer Camps & Programs page is sponsored by iCode of Wellesley. iCode’s interactive programs for kids ages 6 – 18 are going on now. On-site and online programs available.

Please be aware that of the camps and programs listed, some are going forward, some have substantially re-worked their offerings, while others have canceled for 2020.

Contact Deborah to update your summer listing, or for advertising on Swellesley. Camp parents and guardians: Please let camps know that you found them here, if you did…thanks.

Filed Under: Entertainment, Kids, STEM, Technology

From egg drops to Scratch: Kickstarting STEM love among kids

May 28, 2020 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

The Wellesley High School students who offer classes to elementary school students through Kickstart STEM are a techie lot well equipped to teach remotely, as they’ve done for free during the school shutdown forced by COVID-19. But they’d much rather be teaching in person.
Gael Hyppolite, who started the program in Spring of 2018 with classmates Andrew Dunbar and Tristan Martello, loves having kids compete with each other to engage with science technology engineering & math (STEM). He describes the scramble instigated among kids during the last day of a 2019 summer workshop in which they were tasked with building the best possible parachute for an egg using recycled materials.
“We had all our materials placed in two large boxes at the front of the room, but instead of distributing them amongst the groups we told each kid to remain seated until we began the timer,” he says. “Of course, it was chaos the moment we started the timer, with all the kids fighting like animals to get their hands on the materials they needed.”
kickstart
Kickstart STEM in action

 

Hyppolite and his crew (also including Aditya Acharya) converted Kickstart STEM into a business last November and offer classes in general STEM as well as programming languages Scratch and Python via Wellesley Rec for $50 per 6-week program. They and other students have been teaching about 60 kids per season. Scratch, because of its simplicity, has been most popular as a programming introduction.

“We wanted to share our love for STEM and provide kids with our own perspectives on why these fields are so great,” Hyppolite says of Kickstart STEM’s origins.

New online courses are now being offered via Wellesley Rec for small groups to ensure interactivity. When registering, note activity #s: STEM is 322997, Scratch is 322999, and Python is 322998.

More:  Wellesley School Committee presents update on Remote Learning 2.0

Filed Under: Education, STEM, Wellesley High School

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