Meet RoboGabby: She’s on a mission to teach more girls about robotics

Source: RoboGabby/YouTube

Gabby has five goals to achieve this school year. The first goal sounds like any other young middle schooler: get straight As in her classes. Goal number two: get accepted into her school’s robotics team, followed closely by number three: to own her first VEX IQ Robotics kit. That’s when you may realize, Gabby is an extraordinary middle schooler!

Gabby, or “RoboGabby,” is a budding science communicator and roboticist, aspiring to be a role model and STEM ambassador. She began creating tutorial videos to encourage girls to give robotics a try, born from her own experience witnessing the lack of girls involved with STEM at her school, and specifically after an all-girls robotics camp was cancelled due to lack of sign-ups.

“My dad found other robotics camps for me to attend, but there were only about 4 girls who participated, in total, of all the camps I attended — including myself,” she said. “I constantly asked my parents ‘why aren’t more girls involved in STEM? My dad suggested that I try to inspire other girls to get involved. I was very nervous when I first started and scared that people would not like my videos. But everyone online and at my school seems to love my videos,” she said.

Gabby was introduced to programming and robotics by her dad at the age of 8 and enjoyed being able to “explore what a robot can do through code.” She loves working with her hands, having now been to several computer and technology camps, as well as, three robotics camps.

“I started out learning the Python programming language, and I did not quite understand why he was making me learn it.” she said. “Eventually, I started doing fun things with code and began to like it. From 8 to 10 years old, I learned how to program in Python, a little bit of Java, and learned block programming with Scratch. When I was 10 years old, I purchased my first robotic arm using my own Christmas money.”

“I now consider myself a role model, because I am getting recognition from girls and boys all the time,” she said. “I am still making tutorial videos with Robot Virtual Worlds, by Robomatter, and I’m working on making tutorial videos for another robot simulation software called CoderZ. I also plan on making Java programming tutorial videos in the future.”

“I still do not have an actual physical robot, but I’m hoping to get a Vex Programming or Dual Control Starter Kit some day and start making tutorial videos with that, as well. I’ve discovered that being different was something cool, rather than something to be embarrassed about,” she said.

From all of us here at Robohub, we look forward to seeing more of your creative tutorials Gabby! Keep creating!

You can follow RoboGabby’s tutorials on her YouTube channel, or on any of her social media channels, like Twitter or Facebook or Instagram.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also want to read:

• Work, play and STEM: How robotics will bridge the gap
• 25 women in robotics you need to know about – 2016
• Motivational posters with a clever robotics twist
• Teaching the teachers: Study focuses on how teachers perceive educational robots in classrooms
• Adjust how you learn and quickly pick up robotics programming

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Kassie Perlongo Kassie is the Managing Editor at Robohub.

Kassie Perlongo Kassie is the Managing Editor at Robohub.