KCC’s Bruin Bots robotics team receives $11,000 grant from BCCF

The Bruin Bots logo.

Kellogg Community College has received an $11,000 grant from the Battle Creek Community Foundation to help support the college’s expanding Bruin Bots youth robotics program.

The Bruin Bots began at KCC last fall as a youth robotics competition team involving sixth through ninth graders who together built and programmed a robot to compete regionally against other youth robotics teams.

The team formed the base for an expanding youth robotics initiative at KCC that included Lego engineering and robotics camps and a free Bruin Bots After-School Club this spring. Another series of engineering and robotics camps is scheduled to run in July, and the Bruin Bots will compete in a second season of contests this fall.

KCC Youth Robotics Coordinator Kim Andrews-Bingham said the BCCF grant will help the college to continue its work providing kids with fun and challenging hands-on experience in STEM fields that will provide them with key technical skills for the future.

“We’re grateful to the Battle Creek Community Foundation for their support,” Andrews-Bingham said. “Through this grant we can engage even more students as we work to prepare our youth for the jobs of tomorrow.”

The BCCF grant is the third major grant awarded to the Bruin Bots this year. In February, the program received a grant for $3,424 from the United Educational Credit Union’s Bright Ideas Program to purchase robotics materials and supplies; in May the program received a $1,200 grant from the KCC Foundation to purchase software.

For more information about robotics programs at Kellogg Community College, call 269-965-4134 or visit www.kellogg.edu/lifelong.

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