Post on 22-Sep-2020
Girl Powered
Reward is Greater than the Risk
Having a male dominated engineering world is difficult for girls. I have
always had a passion for engineering and finding out how things work and what
makes them function. Inventions and innovations inspire me and have always
looked for a way to showcase my talent for it. Robotics has been a way for me to
do that. Besides engineering, I have an aptitude for writing. When I was little I
wanted to be a writer and would write little stories. This is why when I saw this
opportunity I had to take it. The Girl Powered challenge is going to give me an
opportunity to share my story.
I am in ninth grade and have been in robotics for two years now. I have
grown to learn the design process and how to actually construct a robot. Before I
joined robotics club I never knew it was possible for just normal kids like me to
build a working and programmable robot. I utilize my creative skills for writing
and input not only data into the engineering notebook, but relate the successes
and lessons learned from our encounters. I have met so many great and
inspirational people in robotics and have an amazing team. In my two years of
robotics our team has won 5 awards. Last year on my junior high team, we won
Excellence Award and Tournament Champions at the Palos Verdes competition.
As my first year in the High School Division my team has won the Design and
Judge’s award on top of winning
Tournament Champions to qualify
in order to participate for the
CA State Championship. It has been
so amazing to win awards with a
great team and fulfil our goals and dreams.
But our club has had many members that deal with the socially
unrecognized challenges of autism and Asperger’s syndrome. Autism is a mental
condition characterized as having a more difficult time communicating or making
relationships. But most people diagnosed with autism, almost 70 percent, exhibit
a higher than average intelligence. Actually every 1 in 68 kids is diagnosed with
autism. Symptoms of autism are as I wrote earlier having trouble communicating
or relating to others, having speech delays, being hyperactive or passive, getting
overly attached to objects and so many more symptoms.
I have worked very closely with autism because I have known relatives and
friends that have been diagnosed. I have a very tight knit family and very close to
all my friends. Early in my preschool life, I was able to support a special friend of
mine. The specialists diagnosed my friend to spend the rest of their life in special
education. Being so involved with their life, I grew up being around the therapists
that would come over to their home and try to work to engage them socially.
After visiting the Tri-Counties Regional Center with my friend, I was grateful to be
able to be to “handpicked” to be with autistic kids as a “peer student”. In both
“Play Space” for speech and “Jump Start” play group, I was to model my
behaviors like playing games and socialize so the kids with Autism, Downs
Syndrome, and MR would mimic my behaviors. This gave me additional
experience in situations of how to support my very special friend on a constant
basis. Repetitive modeling allowed them to achieve a high level of socialization.
Therapists would have daily visits which were from 2 hours to 6 hours; it became
a normal, daily routine for me to support them. Being close in age I was able to
attend daily school activities with them at Garden Grove Elementary School for
the “Early Start Program”. Even though I would mainly carry on conversations,
pretend play inside/outside the house, i.e. playing horsey, tea parties, play tag
and make mud pies, it was hard for me to hear the results about them being
bullied due to displaying autistic behaviors. Other children of the same age would
spit on them, kick them or verbally attack them. I continued to strive for each of
my special new friends I met to overcome the “stigma” that they would achieve
more than they were diagnosed to be institutionalize for life. My huge
imagination played reflective moments at the California Psychare Inc. with a one-
on-one reading with these challenged individuals. I would take a picture book
and create detailed stories to share with them every day to help them understand
what they were supposed to do. I was blessed that they would listen to me
where they would finally end up telling me a story of the picture of what they
saw. What was wonderful was the innocence of striving to be a normal person.
Robotics creates a normal environment with those who have autism or
Asperger’s to allow them to feel comfortable and to belong or find their niche.
According to ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) their strengths and abilities are
immensely correlated to the STEM curriculum and occupations. About 46 percent
ASD children have above average intelligence where they learn things in detail
and remember information for long periods of time. They also have strong visual
and auditory capabilities where they excel in math, science, music or art. Many of
our autistic club members utilize the STEM related benefits robotics provides
them. Designing, building and programming has great creative opportunities and
opened many doors for them. My club values these considerable traits to work
together and found ways to focus and input each other’s talents. Remembering
the experience gained as a peer student, I believe my skills helped me as a team
manager that would prove beneficial to integrate each of their individual
aptitudes to create a well-functioning team to its advantage. Autism should be
appreciated for the focused unique gifts that each of the students contribute to
the group in STEM.
Our dedicated robotic members in our club have made many individual
achievements and excel in many areas of STEM, especially displaying their
enthusiasm in a variety of STEM activities. I believe “we are the sum of our past
experiences to be who we are today”. This is true for some of our robotic club
members who have had many successes in each section of STEM. In Science,
several of our students, including myself, have won 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in ASCI
Biola Science Fair. In Technology, our members have created ‘software’, building
radio equipment for networks around the world, and developing an interactive
web page along with his integrated web server utilizing at least 6 different
programming languages to develop all these prior items listed. Other members
strove to share their ideas by co-founding a TedX presentation at our local library
entitled “Motivation”.
In the area of Technology, our robotics members have volunteered over 300
hours of community service to make our corner of the world a better place. In
the area of Engineering our member has “invented a device” for a Blind man to
resume his love of music in the entertainment business over the radio waves.
Hopefully one day this engineer will ultimately attain his love of astronomy mixed
with programming for a future career.
Many of our students excel in all areas of
math. Evidence by the many 1st place ribbons
and certificates they earned from Math
Olympics, American Math Association and Mathematical Association of America
(MMA) starting at the early age in 4th grade in Algebra 2 up to today achieving AP
Calculus in 9th grade. One of our teammates was recognized for several years in a
row to be presented in a grand ceremony in Baltimore, Maryland at the Johns
Hopkins CTY personally awarded for achieving the highest score at age 12 in
mathematical, verbal and spatial abilities.
All our abilities have a down side --- we are very positive in everything we
do. But just know that we are a fun group where some of us are concert
performing pianists, trumpet player, singers, performing actors for SAG-AFTRA,
play all sports in basketball, soccer, and baseball, including all our video gaming
characters. Some of us are selected to volunteer on the City Youth council, Los
Angeles City Youth Council, re-create the Civil War battles for a week, historical
buffs, and politically outspoken. I believe each of our prior individual accolades
and experiences has brought us together to be in robotics.
VEX has given us the ability to spread the excitement of robotics in many
forms. We have over 1,000 hours of volunteering in STEM and VEX related
activities. We were invited to present VEX Robotics to the American Association
of University of Women at CA Lutheran University for 5th-9th graders; STEM
Interactive Pavilion for 2 days where toddlers to adults experience hands-on
driving our robots, as well as, at the Main Event for public access to Toss Up the
bucky balls and beach balls. Our own robotic students volunteer as tutors in math
from Algebra up to AP Calculus. The most prestigious event was being recognized
by our City Council to present several years in a row of “Nothing But Net”,
“Skyrise” and hopefully again this year. Even “Robotics Day for Grandparents”,
Chamber of Commerce Business Leadership and “7th graders for the day” has
brought more interest in robotics to the start of our Robotics Club in 2008 of one
team of 3 students growing to 5 teams of 25 by 2013 at our school. We also give
back to VEX by volunteering as Head Referees, Referees, Award Judges,
Inspectors, TM Software, and more positions to where we have given over 300
hours and counting to support the competitions of VEX robotics in the last 3 years
located in Ventura, Los Angeles and San Diego counties.
COMMUNITY SERVICE – OVER 1,000 Hours in VEX competitions & STEM related events
STEM Interactive: Star Wars Force likes robots! Hands-On Robotics for Toddlers start young!
One of our members has been awarded the VEX Volunteer of the Year Award for
2 years in a row and his parents for the 3rd award this year.
On top of all this, we will be hosting our inaugural VEX Middle School competition
with 28 teams in attendance with the hopes to have VEX IQ teams present their
game for the attending audiences. VEX is the answer for all us.
But the answer to my main theme of my essay “Reward is greater than the
Risk” is ‘yes’. If we did not risk exposing the ‘socially unrecognized challenges” of
our members, we could not understand, integrate knowledge and strive to attain
the recompenses of each of these brilliant individuals. I view my experience of
being a “peer student” that equates to the mentorship VEX has given us. By
designing, building, programming all to prepare for the 2-minute match in a
competition has created the ability for each of us to find different areas of STEM
career possibilities. The added benefit is being able to accept the special
underlying talents of those who risk being vulnerable to become “normal
students”. What the greatest return in our Robotics Club is that we have
celebrated together our strengths, our weaknesses, our challenges and successes
through VEX Robotics making cohesive teammates within our club, competing
VEX alliances/opponents and knowing other VEX friends all over the world by
bringing the incentives to every individual we meet. I believe the wonderful
support I receive as one of the two girls in our club has attracted more attention
for girls to be given the chance to work side by side in the male dominated STEM
occupations. All barriers will be lifted and equitable for each and every one of us,
whether we are male or female including those with special talents waiting to
blossom with patience, role modeling and understanding. Thank you VEX
Robotics and REC Foundation to have a system for our Mentors, school and
parents support our future careers in STEM.
Name of Entrant: Jackie Cleaveland Registered Team Number: 986-A Grace Brethren Lancers Jr/High School Name of the Story Book: "Reward is Greater than the Risk" Recognition of Sponsors:
The Boeing Company California Community Colleges - Doing What Matters College of the Canyons
Credit of software used: Microsoft Word Book Covers: Clip-Clop! (Mr. Horse) by Nicola Smee
R is for Robot: A Noisy Alphabet by Adam F. Watkins (Author, Illustrator) Photos by: Cleaveland Family; Donna Schemm; Cecily & Jeff Nelson
Jackie’s Team – 986A: The Greatest Team of All!