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!