The Junior Botball® Challenge program provides equipment, software, curriculum and professional development to elementary educators (K-8) to enable them to teach their students to write computer code coupled with real-life applications of the engineering design process. The curriculum is aligned to Common Core math and Next Generation Science standards and vertically aligned to concepts and skills in middle and high school. The inquiry-based program focuses on discrete programming skills and engineering design concepts designed to improve computational thinking skills and promote mastery. The focus is on education and classroom or extracurricular activity use, however if the teachers and students are interested they can participate in one-day public events where student teams showcase their robot designs and challenge solutions. The program is sustainable as schools can reuse the equipment allowing for continued participation at ~/year. The focus on education (CS concepts, coding and engineering standards) coupled with the sustainability and the low cost of equipment, which includes activity mats, curriculum and professional development makes it easier to target all teachers and impact more students not just the STEM, gifted or technology teachers that traditionally participate in these types of activities.
