Community Outreach

Outreach works best when robotics leaves the garage and shows up where families already gather.

2,088
Outreach Hours (25–26)
10,500+
People Reached
5
FLL Teams Founded / Coached
4
NASA Astronaut Connections
Why It Matters

Reaching girls before they step off.

Research from Microsoft and KRC Research, drawn from interviews with more than 6,000 girls and women, found that girls leave STEM through a series of "off ramps" during middle and high school. Usually it comes down to two things they never got: hands-on experience and a role model who looks like them. That's the window we aim at.

By the time a girl might step off, we want her to have already driven a robot, met a student who looks like her building one, and found a team to join. Our outreach grew from 692 hours in 2023–24, to 1,814 in 2024–25, to 2,088 hours in 2025–26.

Students gathered around a VOLT robot
What We Do

Meeting kids where they are

📚

O'Fallon Public Library

Four years of the Summer Reading Kickoff grew into the O'Fallon Library STEM Club, where students lead hands-on circuits, coding, and robot-driving games using SPIKE Prime kits and Cubelets.

🎖️

Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois

We engage our girl scout community at STEM events,badge workshops, Mini STEM Camp, Overnight STEM Camps, O'fallon CityFest Parades, and various other annual events.

🧱

Founding FLL Teams

When teams weren't showing up, we started them. Two rookie FLL teams now run through the library, and two Girl Scout focused teams our a local church. When pathways don't present themselves, we make them.

🎪

Community Events

Nearly 5,000 people reached at our recurring Vine Street Farmers Market, 1,800+ at the St. Louis Science Center's Sci-Fest Expo, and 400+ at STEM Nights.

🤝

Mentoring Other Teams

Our students helped start Skyline Robotics in 2023, and mentored Edwardsville's rookie FTC team across eighteen sessions. That team won the Judges' Choice Award in its first year.

🌐

FIRST Global Exchange

Our students presented their robot and outreach work over Zoom with teams in Morocco and Libya. The pathway we're building reaches well past our own town.

VOLT drive team at the field
Role Models

Feedback from people who've been to space.

Our history with NASA astronauts goes back to 2022. Direct feedback from people who have actually been to space carries weight that is hard to replicate.

Dr. Sandra Magnus Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger Linda Godwin · Advisory Council Lt. Gen. Susan Helms · Women in STEM
STEM Leaders In Making

Students eventually become leaders.

A girl drives a robot at the Summer Reading Kickoff. She comes back for STEM Club. She joins a library or Girl Scout FLL team, moves up to FTC, and finds an FRC team waiting at the end of the road. The girls who once needed help with a robot now coach the younger ones. They explain the sensors. They run the FLL events.

Meet Our Partners