Girls attending the Turtle Creek Elementary STEAM Academy in Turtle Creek, Penn., near Pittsburgh, have been given a special opportunity — to teach their mothers how to build robots! The mother-daughter pairs also explore engineering and computer programming and discuss what it means to be a girl in STEM.

Tina Dietrich, director of STEAM and Innovation for Woodland Hills School District, helped gather the student pieces below. Learn more about why Dietrich started the mother-daughter nights by reading her Educator Voice piece here.

My name is Kyra Scott. I am in fourth grade at Turtle Creek Elementary STEAM Academy.

This past winter, we started a Mother-Daughter VEX Robotics Club to help women to understand engineering and robotics — and maybe even get involved with robotics themselves! This last part is what I enjoy most about it.

When we go to the club, there is always a presenter who talks with us about all different kinds of robotics. My favorite presentation was when we learned about engineers in space and what jobs they have. When the presenter finishes, we get to build our robots. After that, we journal with a prompt for the remainder of the time.

One of the main purposes of the club is to encourage girls to consider a job in a robotics or STEM career. We have focused on this goal because most engineers are men. Men hold these positions since they have often been exposed to more building opportunities that helped them understand things like engineering and robotics.

Parents and others usually give boys Legos and cars while girls get Barbies. So, girls just aren’t exposed as much to building things. The point of the club is to try and expose girls and women to robotics and other types of engineering opportunities, so they know that if they want to be an engineer they can be.

My name is Chrissy Bliss, and I’m a fifth grader at Turtle Creek Elementary STEAM Academy.

I enjoy attending the mother-daughter robotics club held at the Rankin Community Center just outside Pittsburgh. I've been teaching my mother how to build, drive, code and troubleshoot a VEX robot. My favorite aspects of the program are building the robot for the different activities and adjusting it to better complete the challenges.

I have been using robotics since third grade and have had some great experiences with STEM in school, at home and in the mother-daughter club. For example, at home I like to build wooden vehicles just like we build the robots in the club. I have to put small pieces together to make a vehicle. Each piece has its place in order for the vehicle to be successful with its tasks.

At our mother/daughter meetings, we also have guest speakers. The speakers are all engineers and scientists. We even had students and staff from Pitt Engineering who talked about their experiences in college and our future if we attended Pitt. The young women explained how they were getting paid to do what they enjoyed while still being a student.

The most interesting guest to me, though, was a local person who worked with NASA! She talked about how astronauts train on land as well as how disabled people need special tools to work and move around in space. When I grow up, I want to be a veterinarian, and make devices for animals with disabilities to help them live healthy, happy lives. I know I'll have the skills to troubleshoot when there is a problem with their devices or medicine.

Hi, my name is Piper, and I'm in fourth grade at Turtle Creek Elementary STEAM Academy.

I've been doing robotics for about a year and a half, and so far, I've loved the experience! (I also love math, cooking, playing flute and soccer.) We get to do a lot of fun activities like building, coding and driving robots through different courses.

There are controls where we can drive different robots that we've built, and we can also code them with coding blocks. There are a lot of different builds. Sometimes we are given instructions for the build, and other times, we have free time to build our own designs or add different things to the build we have already made.

When you are participating in robotics, you'll have some problems along the way, but that is okay because we can learn from our mistakes. I enjoy robotics because there are different challenges, like coding the robot or when a piece doesn’t fit in the right spot.

I like to challenge myself to do hard things. I also like robotics because I get to help other people solve problems with their builds, and I think it is cool to see what other people like to build with the kits.

There is also a mother-daughter after-school robotics program where my mom and I get to build a competition robot and practice on the competition field. It is a very fun experience to do with my mom because I can teach her all the different things about robots.

It is only girls because there are a lot more boys in the technology, engineering and robotics fields, so we are trying to get more females involved in these fields. I am excited to see what new challenges and builds are in store for us next!

My name is Katelyn. I am in fifth grade.

I play lots of sports and have two brothers. I’m also in the robotics club with my mom. We built a robot using instructions. Well, I built it, and my mom handed me the pieces. I think it is fun to build and drive my car. I also like working with my mom.

We have a competition soon, and I'm very excited. In our competition, we have to drive our robot around obstacles and work together. In one obstacle we have to open a clam, take the pearl from inside the clam, and drive back to the green square.

Almost every week we have a guest come in and tell us about different kinds of engineering where I learn a lot!

Now hear from the educator who started the robotics program here.

If you're a student and would like to contribute to Student Voice on this topic or another one of your choice, write Victoria at vpasquantonio@newshour.org. Sign up for NewsHour Classroom’s ready-to-go Daily News Lessons delivered to your inbox weekly.

For more lessons and content related to invention education, see PBS NewsHour Classroom's Invention Education curriculum. To learn about Classroom's Invention Teacher Fellowship and the Invention Ed Network, read the article, Get to Know the 2023-2024 Invention Education Fellows.