Welcome to Racecar Middle School!

Check out the slides below for a visual overview of what RMS offers!

Slides: BWSI19 RMS Overview

What is RMS?

Racecar Middle School, or RMS, is a STEM program designed for middle school students (grades 6 - 8) to learn programming and robotics through interactive, project-based labs. This course requires no previous experience to follow.

RMS introduces students gradually to python programming, computer vision, and robotics concepts through hands-on activities and labs. By the end of the course, students will be able to program a robotic car to self-navigate a race course. This course was developed through the Beaver Works Summer Institute (BWSI).

Class Types

Online Course (online, self-guided)

  • This online, self-guided curriculum for middle school students uses a project-based approach to teach students STEM, programming, and team-building skills while they build a low-cost, driverless model car. The online curriculum was developed with the goal of enabling any interested middle school student to learn how to build and program their very own self-driving racecars. The website course materials is built from that used in the Summer Course.

Crash Course (8 weeks, weekly)

  • This 8-week crash course teaches middle school students (6th-8th grade) the fundamentals of programming, computer vision, and robotics. RMS Crash Course is a middle school outreach program that focuses on improving diversity in STEM through robotics education. The course focuses on interest-building and exposure. Local middle school students attend eight, 3-hour hands-on sessions on Saturday mornings.

Summer Course (4 weeks, daily)

  • This 4-week robotics course introduces local middle school students (6th-8th grade) to Python, OpenCV, and the RACECAR platform. This month-long, intensive course is held during the month of July through the BeaverWorks Summer Institute (BWSI). The curriculum culminates in a final “Mini Grand Prix” in which students program a robot to autonomously navigate through an obstacle course.

Previous Classes Taught

RMS was developed in Summer 2019 as a BWSI pilot middle school program, with the goal to develop a curriculum that can reach and inspire underserved students in STEM. We have since ran a number of different iterations of RMS since then. The brochures and schedule of topics for each iteration taught can be found below:

Some Statistics

Students filled out self-assessments on the first and last day of the RMS Summer 2019 class. The questionnaire asked students about their comfortability with specific topics taught in class. Students their comfortability from 1 (never heard of it) to 5 (expert). Based on student feedback, students who finished the curriculum felt a general increase in confidence and comfortability with programming, python, opencv, and robotics. For more details, check out the Student Feedback in the RMS Overview slides above (slides 55 - 59).

How do I get started?

Head over to the Curriculum Guide to learn more about what this course offers.