Last Friday, students at Monroe Middle School battled each other by proxy at the underwater robot wars.
Since October, two teams of students in the AIM TRIO Talent Search program have been building their own Remotely Operated Vehicles. They have worked with instructors from the AIM Brain Exchange, as well as teachers for Monroe’s Science Club and Tech MashUP, to design and assemble the robots.
In doing so, students have learned about robotics, electronics, construction, design, problem solving, and teamwork.
“It’s been fun to see how their brains work,” said Jon Larsen, an instructor at Brain Exchange. Larsen and Erin Lasiter, executive director of the Brain Exchange, advised both teams on the finer points of robot construction, like soldering and wiring.
Monroe instructor Sherri Strain said students have worked on the robots at least an hour-and-a-half each week for almost the entire school year. Along the way, they’ve built some useful skills.
“They’re doing a lot of things that they didn’t think they’d be able to do: soldering, cutting pipe, all of it,” Strain said. “It was very entertaining for us, just watching that growth.”
The underwater robot wars comprised three rounds: a maneuverability course, a speed trial, and a rescue mission.
In round one, students piloted their robots through three underwater hoops, to flex the robots’ mobility capabilities.
In round two, the robots raced each other to the middle of the pool and back.
The final round was a rescue & recovery mission. Teams used their robots to pick up plastic rings, garden trowels, and rocket ships that were scattered around the bottom of the pool.
While the Science Club’s green robot won all three trials, Tech MashUP’s blue robot won for best design, team unity, and perseverance.
AIM Trio Talent Search Coordinator Shane Barsell said the idea for the project came to him from the annual Council for Opportunity in Education conference, which he attended last year in NYC.
“It’s really exciting to see the students do something different that they wouldn’t usually do in the classroom,” Barsell said.
In addition to the STEM skills they developed, students learned how to persevere—the project took eight months to complete.
The AIM TRIO Talent Search program helps students from disadvantaged backgrounds with the potential to succeed in higher education. The program provides academic, career, and financial counseling to its participants and encourages them to graduate from high school and continue on to and complete their postsecondary education.
AIM provides free technology education to youth who would not otherwise have the opportunity to experience it. We are helping build a strong, sustainable, and diverse IT workforce locally. Please support our youth-in-tech programs via Omaha Gives.
Underwater robot kits are available from SeaPerch.
When Sarah Paczosa was laid off from a printing company after 17 years, she needed a change. The industry wasn’t as promising as it used to be. So she enrolled in the 10-week Foundations of Web Development course at the AIM Interface Web School.
“I came in not knowing anything,” Paczosa said. Now she is fluent in HTML, CSS, Javascript, WordPress—everything she needs to know to build an elegant and functional contemporary website. Soon she will add Java to her list of skills, as she enters Interface’s 14-week Java specialization course to become a versatile, full-stack developer.
Paczosa is one of 14 Interface students to graduate last Thursday in a ceremony held on the historic Trading Floor of the AIM Exchange Building. Representatives from OpsCompass, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska, Flywheel, Mutual of Omaha, Bellevue University, and Gallup attended the event to network with the graduates.
Mutual of Omaha Senior HR Specialist Dean Frazee said he was excited to meet the students and to scout new talent. He expressed his support for the code school model.
“To me, it’s wonderful that you can bypass the traditional route and get to the things that you’re really gonna use in the environment that you really want to work in,” Frazee said. “That’s a huge advantage. I wish more people did it.”
Interface is the only nonprofit, accredited code school in the Omaha area. It has an 80 percent job placement rate thanks to the ongoing efforts of AIM staff, who keep in close contact with companies looking to fill crucial IT positions.
“You have a whole team of people trying to find you a job,” Paczosa said. “The people that work at AIM are really great.”
(At Interface, each student is assigned a personalized tech concierge to connect them to job openings and search for new opportunities on their behalf—like an academic advisor that follows them after graduation).
Interface not only helps students builds the skills necessary to obtain a more rewarding job right away, it also positions them to pursue a more extensive formalized course of study in computer science, if they want to go that route.
“At Bellevue University, we recognize the high quality of this program, so students can actually transfer into Bellevue and attain college credit for the work they’ve done at Interface,” said Mary Dobransky, Dean of the College of IT at Bellevue University. Dobransky sits on the AIM Board of Directors and has been a longtime fan of the work AIM does to build the local tech talent community.
One of the most important aspects of Interface, perhaps, is the camaraderie built between students and teachers. Multiple graduates mentioned their gratitude for their instructor, Kent Smotherman.
“Kent was great: super helpful, positive, generous with his time during and after class,” Paczosa said.
“The experience was so good, I’m doing it again,” said Kent Seevers, graduate of the Foundations of Web Development course. This time around, Seevers will be taking the .NET class, on his way to becoming a full-stack developer.
If you are interested in hearing more about Interface, please attend a free info session to see how you can upgrade your life in two nights a week while keeping your dayjob.
When she becomes a psychiatrist, Papillion-La Vista High School graduating senior Alexis Hamilton (above, second from left) wants to use technology to reach people in rural communities who would not otherwise be able to access the care they need. That’s good, because according to a 2017 report by the physician search firm Merritt Hawkins, there’s a severe and escalating shortage of psychiatrists, especially in rural areas.
One solution is telepsychiatry, a branch of telemedicine, which is the practice of using technologies like Skype to provide healthcare from a distance. Hamilton sees telepsychiatry as a crucial tool to address the need for mental healthcare workers and plans to incorporate it into her path as a psychiatrist.
“Especially people out in rural areas out in Nebraska don’t always have access to people in the mental health field. Telepsychiatry will help me interact with those people, and it will help make their lives easier,” Hamilton said, adding that it will make her life easier, too, by saving her on driving time to distant clinics.
The motivation to become a psychiatrist comes from a personal place for Hamilton: her mother struggled with mental illness. That struggle profoundly impacted Hamilton and her siblings. But despite these struggles, Hamilton has worked hard to excel in every aspect of her life.
She is now reaping the rewards of that hard work: she just received a scholarship to Doane University, where she will double major in Psychology and Spanish. In a few years, she hopes to attend UNMC for med school.
Currently, she participates in UNMC’s High School Alliance Academy (HSAA), a health sciences enrichment program that allows high school juniors and seniors with the opportunity to observe, shadow and work alongside health care professionals and researchers at UNMC.
“It’s fun because you get to interact with the different professors there,” Hamilton said of the HSAA. “Interacting with someone who researches cancer for their living is really awesome and interesting.”
In addition to her academic work, Hamilton runs cross country and track, wrestles, and swims. She volunteers at her wrestling club, coaches girls wrestling, participates in National Honors Society and the AIM Upward Bound program, sits on the Honors Council at HSAA, serves as Senior Secretary for Papillion-La Vista, and even helps out her school’s counselors.
“I am in everything,” she said. “I can’t even name them all.”
Not surprisingly, given her career interest, Hamilton said her favorite class in high school has been AP Psychology.
Surprisingly, given everything she’s involved in, she calls herself a procrastinator.
“I am a procrastinator. It’s not always fun. I try really hard to balance my time even though I do procrastinate.”
She clarified that she schedules out her entire life and is usually able to stick to the schedule.
“If it doesn’t get done, there’s always tomorrow,” she said, affecting an air of wisdom, before wisecracking, “There’s two ways you could look at that: a good way, and a bad way.”
Hamilton said she prized her time in the AIM Upward Bound program and developed a positive rapport with AIM staff.
“I feel like I have really close relationships with them and can talk with them about anything. It can be school-related or I can just joke with them,” she said.
She appreciates the help she received from AIM in researching and applying for scholarships. “I wouldn’t be able to go to college without the scholarships I have gotten.”
Most importantly, Hamilton said Upward Bound helped her understand that STEM is for everyone.
“It’s really opened my mind, especially as a female that wants to go into the medical world, to how I can use technology, math, and sciences to make sure I am successful,” she said.
And, not surprisingly, given her passion for helping people, Hamilton wants to work to make sure other girls know they too can be successful in STEM.
“I want to give girls the voice that, yes, you can like science, you can like math and still have fun with it. I think Upward Bound is a great motivator for girls to get into technology.”
“You got this! You’re doing great. Easy money, easy money.”
As one student struggles to step off a tree-high platform onto nothing but air and a row of swaying Olympic rings, her classmates shout words of encouragement at her. Though harnessed snugly by pulley and carabiner to a thick steel cord, and gripping two guiding ropes on either side of her body, she hesitates.
The task looks easy enough—from the ground. When you’re 30 feet high, however, it’s a different story.
Finally, the student squeals when she steps over the forested abyss, securing one sneaker into a slippery ring, and then another, and another. She makes her way all the way across the distance between two massive ash trees, then ziplines back to earth. Her classmates crowd around to congratulate her. She laughs as she catches her breath.
Last Friday, AIM accompanied 15 Papillion La-Vista Upward Bound students to the Go Ape rope course at Mahoney State Park in Ashland, Nebraska. Go Ape is an adventure activity where groups explore the forest canopy via a treetop rope course incorporating multiple zipline rides.
The field trip served as a challenging team-building exercise that also helped cap an academic year’s worth of Upward Bound programming. Upward Bound is a federal TRIO program that helps students from disadvantaged backgrounds succeed in their precollege performance. AIM coordinates Upward Bound programs and provides free technology education through the Brain Exchange at five area high schools.
Jonathan Holland, director of educational programs at AIM, said the Boy Scouts’ program C.O.P.E.—Challenging Outdoor Personal Experience—inspired the trip. Such experiences are meant to build trust, teamwork, self-confidence and determination while also providing the myriad physiological and psychological benefits of outdoor exercise.
“It’s a good way to close out a great school year and do some good team-building,” Holland said.
Some students found the course more terrifying than others. Nevertheless, they all participated. When one student started showing signs of fear, other students’ voices would swell with cheers and praise. Inevitably, the student in distress made it through.
The process served as a microcosm for the support that AIM Upward Bound offers its students. Through a variety of initiatives—including specialized academic instruction, mentoring, counseling, cultural enrichment activities, and work-study programs—Upward Bound challenges youth to continually push themselves to do their best, while clipping them into essential services they need to make the journey safely.
Sophomore Quincy, who makes music, raps, and performs live under the name Qu33zy, says the trip helped him conquer fear.
“I was afraid of heights for the longest time,” he said. “Then I found out the zipline wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.” Once he got over his initial zipline fear, he said he started rushing through the course just to get to the next zipline station, because it was so fun.
The Upward Bound program in general has helped Quincy conquer another fear: selecting a college. “Upward Bound actually helped me get research done that I wouldn’t have done on my own before. Now that I have a set college, I’m actively working to get to it.” After graduation, he plans to attend Full Sail University to study music production.
Freshman Kei’Mari enjoyed the variety of the ropes course. “It was fun to get up to the zipline, but it’s actually better going down than it is going up,” she said.
Kei’Mari also enjoys the variety built into Upward Bound itself.
“It’s not like they have your mind set on one thing,” she said. “They actually show you different things. I just want to be a lawyer, but they still show me different things you can do on computers and how to code and stuff like that.”
AIM Institute is committed to providing free tech education experiences to youth who would not otherwise have the chance to access them. Our youth-in-technology programs help build the tech talent community and ensure the tech ecosystem remains diverse and innovative enough to meet tomorrow’s workforce demands.
Please help us continue to provide valuable programming to the youth who need it most. Make a donation to AIM through our Omaha Gives page today.
When the eyes of a slack-mouthed robot boy dart toward you and a prerecorded voice whines from its rubbery frame—“I want to go home”—you can thank the latest smart technology for any heebie jeebies you feel.
HAL is a simulated patient developed through the UNMC iEXCEL program, which employs simulation and visualization technology in healthcare education. The bot has a programmable heartbeat, makes digestion sounds, and even cries real tears.
“We have a whole family of them, from preemies to adults,” said Samantha Rogers, advanced simulation specialist for iEXCEL. iEXCEL’s goal is to improve human performance and outcomes in medical scenarios.
The HAL bot was one of the smart community technologies on display Wednesday at SmartBiz Omaha, an event coordinated between the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce, the Startup Collaborative, and Cox Business to showcase cutting-edge advances in business, healthcare, education, workplace, and city infrastructure technology.
Multiple demonstration stations were set up around the Greater Omaha Chamber office to allow attendees to experience the developments firsthand. For instance, Retail Aware is a smart retail app that uses sensors to monitor how customers interact with products displayed in-store, and then provides real-time data to help businesses track product engagement. Trapollo allows doctors to remotely monitor the health of patients and make virtual housecalls.
The centerpiece of the event was a smart city augmented reality experience that lets municipalities continually monitor water infrastructure. Such an app could save a considerable amount of money for local governments, said Derrick Calderon, director of Cox Smart Communities.
“It’ll take a lot of partnership with the City, but I see that Omaha can definitely be a benefactor of smart technology. It’s a great environment, a good-sized city to be able to do this in,” Calderon said.
“For Cox Business, it’s more about making sure people understand it’s not your mom’s cable company anymore,” said Ashley Perkins, vice president of Cox Business. She referenced several mergers and acquisitions that Cox has made to move further into technology infrastructure, such as Rapidscale, a cloud computing company.
Governor Pete Ricketts opened the SmartBiz Omaha event with remarks about the need to strengthen Nebraska’s tech workforce to meet current and future business demands.
Following the governor’s remarks, Ken Kraft, senior vice president of marketing for the Greater Omaha Chamber, moderated a panel of area tech stakeholders consisting of Dee Baird, senior vice president of economic development for the Greater Omaha Chamber; Marcus Graham, director of creative development for the livestreaming service Twitch; Cathy Lang, state director of the Nebraska Business Development Center; and Victoria Novak, director of workforce & IT innovation at Metropolitan Community College.
The panel commended the region for its powerful telecommunications infrastructure while reiterating the need to ramp up local tech workforce development.
“We have to punch way above our weight,” Baird said, in comparison to cities with tech-heavy workforces that are competing with Omaha for business investment.
Recognizing this, the Chamber has a goal adding 10,000 tech workers to the Omaha area, with a median salary of $50,000, over the next five years.
“These are not small numbers,” Baird said. “This is what keeps me up at night.”
Code schools like the Interface Web School are already training skilled tech workers to meet that demand. But to keep tech talent here, and to attract more talent and business investment, the region also needs a transportation strategy that includes a more robust public transit system.
“We have to think about how we’re going to move our labor around,” Baird said.
