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HOLA Lakeway hosted orientation for its new RoboThinKids Program, Saturday morning.

The program is designed to teach students problem solving and analyzing skills as they build, code and play with robots.

The 12 weeks program is sponsored by the Howmet Aerospace Foundation and Cummins-Meritor and is for students in third grade through fifth grade.

Each Saturday, students will learn the basics of coding, designing and constructing simple and complex machines.

Donna Kanipe, Hola Lakeway Board Member and Co Coach for the program, explained the goal for the program.

“Our dream is to create a dream for students who may not have this opportunity,” she said. We want them to be able to build a bigger world. We are going to start small and continue to grow and help them grow.”

“We have a STEAM Camp that we started last year that was the birth of that dream and we are wanting to expand that, which is why we created this program.”

Kanipe explained why there is a need for the program in the community.

“Next year it’s a state law that the schools have new computer science standards and curriculum that needs to be taught and this program is going to support that teaching,” she said. This is the future and if we don’t provide this type of education to our students we’re going to be behind other counties, states and countries.”

She explained what each week will look like for students and how she hopes the program will evolve.

“Right now we are learning the core components, and each week we are going to teach them something new,” she said. They’re going to build, then learn how to code that build. At the end of each lesson they will reflect on what they learned so they can really internalize the information given to them.”

“I see this as a program that I will follow these kids through middle school and high school and hopefully get them some career opportunities that they wouldn’t have been able to receive if not for this program.”

Juan Carlos Cruz Rojas, Lean System Design Expert/Six Sigma Black Belt at Cummins/Meritor and Co Coach, explained why he decided to join the program.

“I come from Mexico City and I have worked from Cummins, Meritor for 15 years. The company then transferred me here to Morristown,“ he said. “When I got here I realized the facility needs more employees with technical background and with problem solving skills.”

“Then I was thinking how I could help solve that issue and fix the entire environment for the facility.”

Rojas also realized that the company needed to become more involved with the community.

“Business executives focus on profit and how they can make the company more money, but I tell them first we need to give back and help the community we’re in,” he said. “I told them that we have no culture and no relationship with the community.”

“So as I sat there thinking what can we do, I said we need to start with the kids. If we can fuel their passion for engineering and robots, and nurture their talents throughout their childhood then when the graduate they will have skills and knowledge that not only my company will benefit from, but also other companies will benefit from.”

Rojas explained he goal as the programs coach and it will look in the future.

“My goal is to become a teacher and coach for the kids. I would love to guide them and develop their talents for robotics and engineering,” he said. “Eventually I would love to take some of the kids to compete in a robotics competition; I’m sure if we could give some kids some knowledge of programming and building we could win very easily.”

Rojas hopes that he can continue to have his company support the program and other community initiatives.

“I want the industry to be intertwined with the community here in the Lakeway Area,” he said. “We need to understand that we need to help each other.”

The RoboticThinKids Program is open to anyone within the Lakeway Area and HOLA Lakeway is still accepting students.

The program is free and each week breakfast and/or a snack is provided to students.

For more information about the program or to sign up call 423-621-9065.