DARC SIDE seeks to share our passion for STEM with our community. Each year, we create a simplified version of that year’s game manual and share it with teams in the area. Before the pandemic, we also hosted a kickoff event at our school and invited teams all across North Carolina to strengthen our relationship with the First community.
We also aim to make STEM more accessible and inclusive and work to help students of all ages, ethnicities, gender identities, and sexual orientations get into STEM to help build a more diverse field.
Below are our some of our other efforts to help our community.
Museum of Life and Science: DARC SIDE is exited to start working with the Museum of Life and Science to help inspire the future generations. We aim to visit the museum at least once a year to demonstrate our projects and creation and get kids (and parents) exited about the opportunities that come from STEM.
Wonder Connections: Our team continues to with WonderConnections, a local organization that works to brings science to kids in the UNC children’s hospital and neurosciences unit. One way we do this is by making fun science kits and instructional videos for the kids. We have organized days where team members worked with the organization to improve these kits together. We offered our comments to help make the kits as fun and educational as possible for the kids Wonder Connection supports. We have also hosted fundraisers to help raise money for WonderConnections to ensure they can keep working towards their goals.
First Lego League: We mentor our middle school FLL teams: 31861- The Robonators, 25598- The Robo Dragons, 52735- The Robo Sapiens, and 17134- DA Cav Squad. We share our resources such as our tools and lab space as well as our knowledge and experience.