Dec 5, 2014 2 min read

Local middle school teacher Zee Ann Poerio received a McDonald’s MAC Grant for $500 to help bring a hands-on robotics project into science classrooms at St. Louise de Marillac School in Upper St. Clair.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the MAC Grant program, which supplements regular classroom lesson plans with activities the school budget may not allow. Every school year, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade teachers apply for grants of up to $500 to fund interesting and educational projects.

The MAC Grants program provides financial support so teachers can bring hands-on tools into the classroom to engage their students in innovative ways.

Poerio is one of many local teachers selected to receive a 2014 MAC Grant. The $500 grant will help her utilize five Finch robots to teach computer science and programming. The Finch is a robot designed for computer science education that was developed at Carnegie Mellon’s CREATE lab. Students will learn how to write programs to transform the Finch into a buzzing alarm clock, a joystick for student-written games, a hearing test, a musical instrument, a light-fearing robot, a weather forecaster and much more.

Recently, Poerio met one of the creators of the Finch robot at the 2014 Three Rivers Educational Technology Conference, Dr. Thomas Lauwers. Lauwers is the founder of BirdBrain Technologies LLC, and creator of the Finch Robot and the Hummingbird Robotics Kit, which were both initially designed at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute’s CREATE lab.

“Zee was awarded a McDonald’s MAC Grant for the Hummingbird Robotics kits two years ago and has been a great ambassador for robotics in the elementary and middle schools,” said Lauwers. “I know her students will enjoy programming the Finches.”