Over the next few months, elementary schools throughout Warwick will be taken over by robots one by one. With help from all of the principals, Lynn Dambruch in the Elementary Education Office as well as seniors from the Warwick Veterans Memorial High School Robotics Team, 15 students per school have the opportunity, over the course of one week, to work on robotics kits, assembling a small robot and programming its various motions.

The robotics program truly began last year when Warwick Neck Elementary had several robotics kits donated for a period of time from a parent.

Principal Patricia Cousineau reached out to Kevin Sanita after reading a Beacon article concerning the Vets Robotics Team’s success at a statewide robotics competition.

The team had aspirations of a community outreach project, a way to get younger students interested in robotics, and as team member Kaleigh Marcotte put it, “all the puzzle pieces came together and the project blossomed into this really beautiful thing.”

The students, both high school and elementary, fell in love with the program, and when Sanita was contemplating a senior project, he knew he wanted to bring the elementary program district wide.

He met with all of the elementary principals in early November, explaining his project, and his hope to provide an after school program for elementary students using the Lego Mindstorm EV3 robotics kit. Within two days every school has signed up for the program.

Each kit costs $365 and each school was asked to purchase one kit, to donate to the program for a total of 15. The office of Elementary Education donated $150 per kit, nearly $2,100, to offset some of the cost and John Brown Francis already had a kit previously they were able to donate. The program is free to students.

Dambruch said it’s important to have kids be exposed to this sort of technology and programming at an early age, especially with the new exploratory robotics programs at the middle and high schools.

“We need to open that door for them, get students interested in math and science,” she said.

“I think this will be a huge benefit to the City of Warwick to continue programs like this. This helps kids to be innovative and get interested in technology when they are young,” Sanita said. “It’s important to spark that now. Robotics is a hands-on, fun way to teach math and science while integrating technology into the curriculum.”

Cousineau said that anytime there are robots and Legos in the same room you can guarantee that students are going to be interested. At Warwick Neck, they actually had so many students want to be a part of the program the school had to work on a first come first serve basis and had to turn some students down.

She noted that not only are the elementary students participating in a phenomenal program with “everything the curriculum could ask for” but the high school students are themselves learning about communication skills, professionalism and how to be leaders and role models.

She hopes that over the next three years, even after Kevin graduates in June, that the program will continue for the next three years, with schools purchasing one more kit until the district has 45 readily available for the after school program.

“These young students don’t know all the skills they are learning and demonstrating here. They just see it as fun, but students are learning so many skills, to collaborate especially. This is what we want to see throughout the district,” Cousineau said.

This past week, the after school program has been running at Holliman Elementary, focusing on 5th and 6th graders, and will make a stop to all elementary schools through the end of May.

The program began the week of January 11 and will run until May 27 with the students on the Robotics Team visiting an elementary school nearly every day after school.

Holliman Principal Joseph Coffey said working with the Robotics Team has been like working with a group that has extensive business experience.

“So far, it has been a huge success,” Coffey said. “Students are so engaged and learning skills they will put to use the rest of their lives in and out of the classroom.”

Marcotte said it has been an immensely rewarding opportunity to work with younger students, and possibly inspire future robotics team.

Similarly, Marcotte along with the entirety of the Vets Robotics Team, wants to help inspire both girls and boys. She said that programming, engineering and robotics are typically consider “boyish” industries; the after school program only had four girls participating. When they go into elementary schools they make sure to have the female members of their team as instructors so girls know they are allowed not only to be interested in these fields, but they can excel in it.

“We want to encourage girls,” she said. “To see another, older, girl participating in this lets younger girls they can do it and it can be fun. I had seen another girl doing this when I was younger it would have meant the world.”

Overall, Marcotte said that there is a sense of pride to see others taking an interest in something you’re passionate about.

While the team has made a huge dedication to the elementary school program, they have been putting even more time during and after school, on weekends and vacations into improving their own robot, “Terrence the Tool” for this weekend’s FIRST Tech Challenge, the State Robotics competition.

Last year, the Vets team was able to go to Super Regionals. At this year’s qualifier, at the end of November, Vets’ Team received 3rd overall in the competition, but received the Innovator Award as well as came in 2nd for the Inspire Award.

This year’s challenge is to create a robot to climb a steep incline, 45 and 60 degree angles, able to collect and dispose “debris,” disconnect “ziplines” and then hang from the edge of the ramp.

The team, led by Larry West, a teacher at Vets, will be competing against more than 30 other schools, but have put in more than 300 hours into their robot for the competition.

Both Marcotte and Sanita agreed that it’s exciting coming into the competition after seeing such success last year, but they know the competition is tough.

Sanita said, “I think we are an even stronger contender this year and will do really well.”

The other members of the team are Kyle DiCarlo, Carolyn Silva, Nick Leland, Nick Santagata, Nate Bishop, Andrew Martin, Dan Schuse, Tram Ngyuen and Kylie Ordway.

The FIRST Tech Challenge is this weekend, both Friday and Saturday at New England Institute for Technology’s Automotive Campus off of Jefferson Blvd. The public can watch the competition on Saturday, which will run from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 101 Access Rd. in Warwick.