For the past nine months, Kaliyah, a fifth-grade student at TAF’s partner school Boze Elementary, has participated in the school’s first Lego League Robotics Team. The majority of students at Boze qualify for free and reduced lunch and most families can’t cover immersive extracurricular activities such as robotics. However, with support from donors like you and from Milgard Windows and Doors, The Boze Builders Robotics Team launched last year. 

Back then, we spoke with Kaliyah about her experience being on the robotics team. “The most fun thing about it was working with my teammates and having a good time,” she said. “We had to build stuff. We built robots and tools out of legos and we had to code the robot to move those tools to another place.” 

Her favorite part? Competitions, of course! “Going into the challenges was fun because we would code [the robot] and then see if it would work. There was a bunch of people watching us and it was really awesome!” Kaliyah was optimistic about applying for the upcoming school year and participating more.

This year, with your support, we were able to transport and support the Boze Builders to compete in a 5-hour long qualifier in Auburn, WA. Kaliyah is on the robotics team again and although the team didn’t qualify into the next round, they still scored major points on precision and learned a lot from other teams. When asked about the experience she said, “It doesn’t really matter about winning, just have a good time!” She shares that the top skills she learned from being on the team were teamwork, kindness, and then building robots. 

We hope to continue to offer this opportunity to students at Boze, and to expand into other elementary schools. This isn’t possible without your help. Giving just $15 a month gives robotics kit parts for a team.