{"id":401609,"date":"2026-09-16T15:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T15:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/401609\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T15:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T15:52:11","slug":"robots-zoom-to-the-moon-program-educating-kids-on-stem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/401609\/","title":{"rendered":"Robots Zoom to the Moon program educating kids on STEM"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bgctampa.org\/\" style=\"color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.elchc.org\/\" style=\"color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 The launch of a new initiative giving kids hands-on exposure to STEM also marks the launch of a community partnership preparing students for their future.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">Eleven-year-old Penelope Wecal is one of the first to participate in the Robots Zoom to the Moon program that immerses students in STEM using robots.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">\u201cThey, like, entertain me,\u201d said Wecal of the robots. \u201cThey let me learn about more stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">Pairs are made up of older kids teaching and working with younger students.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">Dr. Fred Hicks, CEO of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elchc.org\/\" style=\"color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Early Learning Coalition of Hillsborough County<\/a>, says he is proud of their collaboration between TECO and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bgctampa.org\/\" style=\"color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Boys and Girls Clubs<\/a> to make learning fun.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">\u201cEvery child that comes in contact with the small robot is going to learn: programming, coding, math, science, reading, partnership, collaboration, mentorship,\u201d said Dr. Hicks.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">Freddy Williams, CEO of the Boys &amp; Girls Clubs of Greater Tampa Bay, hopes the hands-on experience inspires children to get excited about future careers in science, technology, engineering and math.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">\u201cSeeing the curiosity and the spark that\u2019s being engaged in young people, you never know what that\u2019s going to help them be a launchpad into what they want to do, into the future,\u201d said Williams.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">A future Penelope is preparing for now.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">\u201cI love learning,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just, like, my favorite things to do to teach other people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">Young learners taking steps toward becoming the next generation of leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 The launch of a new initiative giving kids hands-on exposure to STEM also marks&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4996,26539,113,276,1187,115,1769,135,137,136,1576,835],"class_list":["post-401609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-education","tag-app-space","tag-education","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-melissa-eichman","tag-news","tag-space","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-technology","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}