Team members and judges watch as a student enters his robot through the Mystery Course.

This all day event is organized and hosted by the Computer-Integrated Surgical Student Research Society (CISSRS). The Robotic System Challenges will be a series of robotic competitions held at the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus. Hundreds of the most gifted middle and high school students interested in science, technology, engineering and math from across the state will participate, accompanied by their parents and friends.

Many engineering students from Johns Hopkins University will be involved as judges, and event officials. This is a wonderful opportunity to reach students that will be most interested in pursuing a degree from a postsecondary institution in the STEM areas.

Our intention is to provide the students with a forum to compete in a creative, scientific fashion while also providing the students with academic and career information. Food and commemorative t-shirts will also be provided to enhance the spirit of the event. The students will encounter four possible challenges that they can compete in using Parallax BOE-bots, all requiring different types of programming. The challenges are the Petite Slalom, Mystery Course, Unleashing the Mad Scientist, and Search & Destroy, Robotic Brain Tumor Surgery.

• Flyer (.PDF)
• Registration form (.DOC)
  
• Rules (.DOC)
  
• Engineering K12 Center (link)

Contact Information: Cyndi Ramey, (410) 516-6841, cramey@jhu.edu.

ERC graduate student, Ioana Fleming, demonstrates her research project to visiting campers.

Bringing a broad diversity of students into the pipeline for science and engineering study is crucial to the nation’s economic future. The key is sparking their interest at an early age. The ERC CISST, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, provides funding, organizational, and logistical support for the Robotics Summer Camp conducted for middle and elementary school-aged children at nearby Dulaney High School. The children who attend come from very diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and from public, private, and home schools from local counties and Baltimore City. They are exposed to robotics construction and theory through a problem-solving application that teaches them basic programming, electronic theory, soldering, and mechatronics. The campers are also provided website design tutorials from ERC graduate students and provided resources to create their own web page. As part of the camp, the participants also tour several engineering labs at Johns Hopkins University.