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Elementary and Middle School Program

At LEARN Science & Math Club, we operate on the assumption that kids can do extraordinary things. And, they always prove us right! Our kids:

  • Build Teams and Communicate Effectively - Our programs teach 5 to 14 year old kids to:
    • Work closely with other kids to analyze and solve complex, on-going challenges
    • Treat others with respect, kindness and appreciation for the skills and abilities they bring to the project
    • Research a topic, identify opportunities and present new ideas to professionals, government officials and the community
  • Make A Difference – Our kids have:
    • Worked to reduce energy usage and pollution. They:
      • Developed a Web app that encourages people to carpool by helping them to easily catch a ride with their Facebook and My Space friends
      • Presented a proposal to the KC City Council and the Missouri State Legislature, encouraging them to implement a metro-area wide ride- and bike-sharing project
      • Built emissions-free pedal cars and displayed them at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the KC Zoo on Earth Day to demonstrate it’s possible to get around town without polluting
      • Conducted a flash mob event called, “FREEZE to Save the Planet,” to promote awareness of the many small things we can all do to reduce energy usage and pollution. To see a video of this event, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf2C3ywCC1Q.
    • Created a patentable biomedical engineering product called Script Alert that could save thousands of lives each year
    • Developed two food safety product concepts
      • One, called Food Tracker, uses the same technology as Script Alert to trace foods from farm to fork, ensuring the CDC and other experts can quickly track and stop food poisoning and contamination.
      • The other, called Stick EZ, uses existing immunoassay technology in the form of a small sticker to identify foods that are contaminated with food poisoning or pesticides.
    • Hosted Open Houses and Science Fairs
  • Achieve Big Things – Our teams:
    • Took 1st Place awards in local and Regional competitions every year (and they’ve often taken home more than one award)
    • Won 1st Place for the Chairman’s Award – the top honor – the last two years
    • Represented the Western Missouri and Kansas Region at North American Championship and at World Festival – making them one of the top 79 teams out of over 22,000 teams for the last two years. On both occasions, they finished in the top ten teams, earning the highest honor: the 1st Place Award for Inspiration.
    • Been nominated twice and won an International Core Values Award for being one of a handful of teams from around the world that best demonstrates gracious professionalism, kindness and support for other teams

High School Program

We launched our high school program in the fall of 2012. Even in this short period of time, our kids are already making a splash. They:

  • Build Life Skills –
    • Develop Strong Technology Skills – Not all of our kids want to be engineers; some want to be doctors, programmers or lawyers. All of them, however, know they benefit from being able to put technology to use. They learn sound engineering principles, strong computer, project management, mechanical and electrical engineering skills.
    • Build Business Skills – Building and programming robots is cool, but solving real-world problems is even better. So, our team does more than compete in FIRST robotics challenges. They are launching a technology-related business. We bring in marketing, sales and accounting professionals to help them commercialize concepts like:
      • Script Alert – One of our FLL teams proposed an innovative, Web-based product to prevent millions of injuries and deaths related to prescription drug dosing errors. Several members of that team have moved up to our new high school team, and they won Phase 1 of the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam grant to fund the prototyping of this product.
      • TeamShare – In conjunction with our FLL teams, our FTC team is developing a Web site to help FIRST Robotics teams share their questions, tips, tricks and techniques – with the goal of improving everyone’s capabilities.
  • Make a Difference – Our kids contribute to the world around them in many ways. They:
    • Mentor FLL And Jr.FLL Teams – Most of our high school team members volunteer four to ten hours a week year-round to coach the younger kids in our program. In past years, they led these teams to numerous first place awards. They also help teach at the regional Coaches’ Workshop every year. And, this year, they helped our organization launch the first-ever FLL Seminars. Three half-day Seminars teach both the kids and coaches on local FLL teams how to improve their presentation, structural engineering and programming skills. The Seminars helped 34 teams and 156 kids prepare for tournament.
    • Host Summer Camps and STEM Classes – Our Club hosts four or five week-long science and math enrichment programs each year. Team members volunteer as camp counselors. These camps serve as both community outreach and a principal fundraiser for the team; last summer, they earned $9,800. Our high school team also puts on a variety of STEM classes for the community including Circuit Board Design & Production, AutoCAD Inventor, the annual Engineering Extravaganza and Programming in Robot-C. They produce on a number of free community service events as well such as Science Night at the Kansas City Public Library and a LEGO Building Blow-Out at Makers Faire.
    • Coordinate TeamXchange – This community service project brings together some of the thousands of FLL and FTC teams from around the world to share their knowledge of robotics and work together on each year’s challenge. Our kids hosted a German team for three weeks in 2010, traveled to Florida for a month last summer and to the Southwest this summer to meet dozens of college, high school and FLL teams.
  • Achieve Great Things – Our team:
    • Scores High – Two years ago, our rookie FTC team won the 1st place Motivate award, the 2nd place Inspire award and was nominated for the Connect award at the Southeast Missouri State Qualifier. They went on to earn the 1st Place Motivate Award at the 2012 State Championship. Last year, they won the 1st Place Connect Award again and the 2nd Place Inspire Award at the 2013 Missouri State Championship, ranking them 2nd overall in the state. They received an invitation to World Festival in the spring of 2013. This year, they swept through their local qualifiers with first place awards in every tournament and finished the season as the Missouri State Champions.
    • Design Exhibits For Science City – For their City Imagineerium proposal, the team won a $2,500 grant in the Burns & McDonnell’s Battle of the Brains
    • Develop Life-Saving Product – They won one of only fifteen MIT InvenTeam grants that were issued worldwide in 2012. Over the course of the school year, they developed a working prototype of their product, Script Alert. This biomedical engineering device tracks, guides and reports on patients’ prescription medication. It has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives each year and was hailed as the most commercially viable and life-saving product at the Lemelson-MIT Eureka Fest in June, 2013.
    • Earn Money for College – The team has two financial goals – to earn all the money they need to fund their STEM program and then to earn enough to make substantial contributions to their college savings programs.