Metal Moose: Community Outreach

An important aspect of both Westtown’s team and FIRST Robotics is service and community outreach. In addition to designing and building a robot each year, Westtown’s Team 1391, the Metal Moose, engages in service projects and outreach to promote STEM and to compete for the Impact Award, the most prestigious award in the FIRST robotics competition league. 

Over the years, this outreach has included running a TechGirlz workshop for girls in STEM; teaching LEGO robotics sessions at Camp Dreamcatcher; doing LEGO robotics and Kendal Crosslands communities; restarting and mentoring a FIRST LEGO League team at The School in Rose Valley; demonstrations at Westtown second graders’ Space Day, and much more. This year, they have been building a relationship with the  American Helicopter Museum & Education Center in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The American Helicopter Museum & Education Center staff reached out to Westtown’s team and invited them to do a robot demonstration on their annual family day. This demonstration was such a hit that the museum staff invited the team back to do another demonstration in their summer program. The Metal Moose then proposed a five-week LEGO robotics camp, which they began this past fall. Fifteen youngsters enrolled, and in their two-hour weekly sessions, Team 1391 taught students how to build, program, test, and demonstrate mini robots, and to learn the principles of teamwork. They worked with FIRST LEGO League EV3 which uses LEGO Technic pieces. The camp was so impactful on the young students that a few reached out to Metal Moose team members to inquire about finding a FIRST LEGO team that they could join. 

The Metal Moose team members enjoy this added dimension to being on the robotics team. “All of the service and STEM outreach we’ve done as a team has been really inspiring to me,” shared Maitreyi Vadigepalli ’27. “Whenever we organize a demonstration, summer camp, or learning session, seeing the kids so excited is always heartwarming. I am always reminded of how excited I would be at these opportunities when I was younger! One thing I particularly like about our outreach work is how student-led it is. I used to attend the School in Rose Valley, and was on their FIRST LEGO League Challenge team for 4th and 5th grade. This team is what ultimately motivated me to pursue engineering in life. Now, as a member of the Metal Moose, I’ve been able to lead the re-establishment of this team by conducting robotics demos, mentoring the team, and attending their scrimmage. This initiative really felt like a full-circle moment for me, and it was really empowering.”