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The STEAM approach is vital to integrate a multidisciplinary team of specialists.
“I saw the call for convocation made by the Quantum Robotics founders. I was interested and said, “Wow, yes! I want to participate!” Adriana Díaz, leader of the interuniversity telecommunications team, perfectly summarized the feelings and impressions of her whole them when provided with the opportunity to join the effort to reach Mars. Her few but effective words represent a growing interest in the student community today: young people want to do science that matters.
Díaz, along with Víctor Rodríguez, co-founder and communications leader of Quantum Robotics, Fernando Méndez and Ramiro Aguilar, electronics and telecommunications specialists for the team chatted with us about education, science, and their project to build an exploration rover.
The call to participate in the project to assemble the space vehicle affectionately nicknamed “Roverto” was the starting point for collaboration between Tecnologico de Monterrey and the National Polytechnic Institute. It brought together students from seven different areas, including telecommunications, robotics, biotechnology, electronics, business, and more.
Cooperation and the will to do teamwork were key components to building the rover and having it ready for international competitions like “University Rover Challenge 2022” and congresses, conferences, and impactful events such as Talentland “From the beginning, that chip was in all of us. It didn’t matter if we came from Tec or Polytechnic; what counted was that we really wanted to contribute to the project. That was the main thing,” Diaz explained about the collaborative way they worked together.
While arming Roverto to reach Mars seems like an ambitious goal, it is just one of the goals Quantum Robotics aims to achieve. The project is indeed a dream, but it is also a means to an end. Víctor Rodríguez, co-founder and communication leader, explained that the idea of a team that unites universities to promote the dissemination of science is the inspiration.
Especially now, when several scientific competitions and exhibitions this year are closing due to the pandemic, Rodriguez reiterates that the primary purpose is to hook the scientific interest of the student community and channel this initiative to specific careers. “Among the principles and vision of the team is to inspire, disseminate, and promote the STEAM concept among young people, so that they can have a greater interest in curricular programs having to do with science.”
He added that this intention is carried out through conferences, courses, congresses, and alliances with other universities to create opportunities to promote STEAM at the education level. He stressed the value of not just talking about their project per se but where space exploration is going in general and how to train to work in the area.
The team showed their awareness of the role that communication plays in the scientific-educational effort, typical in a full exercise of a STEAM venture. Within such a context, soft skills coexist with the exercise of scientific, technical skills.
Fernando Méndez, a specialist in electronics, emphasized that the most valuable experience of attending conferences and having direct contact with students is putting these skills into practice with the idea of educating and learning. “This is when as a team member, you realize how you positively impact people and students, how this helps the student community,” he said of what transpires at conferences and events where they participate.
The response of the student community to these educational efforts has been excellent, as mentioned by Ramiro Aguilar, a communications specialist. The team maintained that there are strong emotions when talking about science in student groups. The project being carried out is proof of this.
Faced with the pandemic contingencies and preventive measures complicating the logistics for the scientific exercise, the leaders realized that the construction of Roverto should be carried out not only by one university but by two. Another realization concerned the potentializing aspect of the team participating in scientific dissemination events. “People like to see how in the middle of a pandemic, a rover could be created by a team formed between two universities. Two prestigious universities coming together to create this project attracts much attention.”
The team’s enthusiasm behind the idea of building a rover and about science education is notorious and contagious. “This shows us that in Mexico, being united, we will be able to achieve very great things,” added Aguilar. He also highlighted the work of Tecnologico de Monterrey and Polytechnic in terms of support, dissemination, provision of spaces, and other necessities to achieve their goal.
A true STEAM integration
The Quantum Robotics team also talked about flexibility and listening skills as keys to the project’s success, especially when meeting and working in the same space is not possible. Given this considerable interest in integrating the knowledge and skills of the letter “A” in STEAM, which represents the integration of the arts and humanities to science, we discussed perceiving them not just as an aggregate in science but as a natural part of science education.
In previous articles, we have reported a recent rebranding of soft skills, referred to as transversal or power skills. The team members offered interesting perspectives revealing a distinctly holistic approach to smooth and soft skills. Víctor Rodríguez’s comments on choosing to call them soft skills reveal the appreciation they have for transversal skills. “It’s like the hardware and software of a computer. When you work with hard skills, it usually involves something you can see, something tangible, and soft skills are those you can’t see physically in the final product, but they are a vital part of the process.”
In addition, Rodriguez affirmed that soft skills are the mechanism to put the hard skills of all the participants into action. The team members made it clear that applying these skills makes the project feel like a shared exercise where the decision that counts is that of the group, but each contribution is valuable.
Have you heard about STEAM or the work of Quantum Robotics before? Have you tried to encourage your students’ interest in science? What has been your experience? Tell us in the comments.
Translation by Daniel Wetta.
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
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