Citizen School students build robot for Motorola Maker Challenge

A worldwide technology company has launched a problem-solving challenge for Chicago's middle and high school students.

Keith Collins and Destiny Batteast are fifth and sixth graders at Schmidt Elementary School on Chicago's South Side, one of four Citizens School of Illinois schools in the city.

Both helped to create the helping bot.

"Basically it's like helping people clean their house and it's for people with disabilities so to help them clean, alert intruders in their house and it triggers sound so you can hear what's going on and that like the motion sensors," Batteast said.

The idea of this robot was personal.

"Because I know someone who was paralyzed through gun violence in a barber shop, and that's why the helping bot came up in my mind," Collins said.

Students involved in the project got a starter kit of materials and assistance from mentors.

Joelien Kames, a product designer researcher at Motorola, is a mentor.

"In this project, I come every Thursday and volunteer with the students to help take the idea that they have and translate that into hopefully a finally project," Kames said.

Citizens School of Illinois Executive Director Bryce Bowman said this project promotes science, technology engineering arts and math education, and hopefully a future in this field.

"We saw an opportunity with the Maker Challenge to have all four of our schools involved," Bowman said. "Students who see individuals with disabilities in our community, they can use technology to design a solution, and Motorola is providing that educational access that our students need to design that technology."

"There's a lot of things that technology can do to actually make people's lives better," Kames said.

The winners of the first Chicago Maker Challenge will get scholarships, devices and other prizes. For more information, visit www.chicagomakerchallenge.org or www.citizenschools.org/Illinois.