Robotics Challenge ISK/CG Team Partnership Journey (2013-2020)

• Our journey into partnership between the International School of Kenya students and the Children’s Garden Home and School Students has been amazing.
• We have been guided by a keen sense of what might be possible, eventhough we could not see it, yet.
• Students were driven by passion.
• We found that this model is sustainable and replicable.

Our Goals

• Find ways to learn technology as a joint adventure in getting to know each other across economic and cultural divides.
• Build relationships, begin to understand and know each other.
• Get to see each person’s superpowers and use in a team.
• Have fun together.
• Be open to all possibilities and opportunities.

2013-2016: The Incubation and Exploration Years

• A connection was made through the Global Issues Service Summit at ISK in 2012.
• Through the seeds of conversations about some hopes of students from Children’s Garden Home and School to learn technology, some ideas germinated.
• Time was made for students to learn basics before collaborating with ISK students.
• Robotics and coding became the vehicles for creating relationships and learning from each other.
• The Program became a joint after-school collaborative journey.

2016-2017:  Venturing out to Collaborate with other Schools

• Lego was now a form of building relationships and learning together between our two schools.
• We worked in teams that were balanced between school, age, and gender.
• Challenges were set as former participants became the coaches for new team members.
• Worked with Christine Ach to help start the East Africa FIRST Lego League.
• Loved the feeling of success in meeting student teams from other schools.

Notable Growth This Year

• Participated in the first Annual East Africa event with two teams composed of students from both ISK and CGH.
• People became interested in the model of having two schools in each team.

2017-2018:  Student Leaders Routinely Guide Program and Students

• The Hydrodynamics FIRST Lego League mat became the learning platform.
• Student Leaders began formulating ways to guide and nurture students.
• Students from both schools freely shared engineering and coding expertise and valued all contributions.
• Students used the Design Cycle to create a water-related project important in Kenya.
• Invited a Rift Valley School to collaborate on techniques for building and coding.

Notable Growth This Year:

• Student leadership became established
• Sharing ideas and becoming friends with a competing team became a routine.

2018-2019:  Student Led Partnership Becomes Established

• Student Leaders meet to create routines for training new student coaches, and participate with adults in coach trainings.
• Leaders prepare to become referees for the competitions.
• Students create a website for resources to study space, especially pertinent because of the Mars landing.
• Inviting competing teams to share ideas and techniques throughout the season becomes the gold standard of this model.

Notable Growth This Year:

• An advisory council is formed to help guide the future.
• Core values are discussed and lived

2019-2020 How a Pandemic Launched Us to a New Level!

• The new Lego season, City Shaper, set students thinking about how they could improve city living with technology.
• A project idea included how to use a biomass digester to create biogas as a solution instead of burning wood.
• Then…..face to face learning stopped and we realized that the annual games would not be able to be held.

Notable Growth this Year

• See the project about the Children’s Garden Home STEM Lab that launched to meet the needs of students who could no longer learn together physically.