you did not give constraints of time or language…
Hai Sing Catholic in Singapore (8066) and School of Science and Technology Singapore (8068) are formidable Middle School teams year after year.
You can also move the Shanghai China and get in the Shanghai Huangpu teenagers center. (8192, 8193) Given you are in Taipei currently it may not be the best choice.
Or move to Downingtown, PA and join the 14 middle school teams of the Vexmen next year (we’re full right now). We meet at night and are nto part of the school which is a pretty good regular middle school experience. The schools get more open at the STEM Academy with what you are looking for for in school experience as you described.
Really… We need you to give us more background before we can give you better or more suitable suggestions.
Like what Vexmen and I have mentioned - there are really very good middle school teams in Singapore.
And going by your criteria, I would suggest 8068 over 8066, even though 8066 has a much better record in World.
So it really depends on what is the purpose of your enquiry.
PS… 8059 junior teams are essentially MS disguised as HS.
In Singapore system, our secondary schools is from 12yo to 16yo.
But I will rule 8059 out, since we don’t meet some of your criteria listed.
8066 is amazing. Honestly better than a lot of hs teams at worlds. Yeah I agree with everything here. I was in MS worlds last year and truly saw how insane 8066 was. 8068 is really good as well (one of their teams was the second pick in our alliance). Huangpu in Shanghai is good as well. But, I think Singapore has the strongest MS teams.
Your comments are much appreciated. Some of the teams mentioned, such as the Singaporean schools I have considered, but Meng points out the age spread overlaps ages considered to be upper school.
The context of this request is to find a Middle School that our teacher team can visit to learn from and contribute to the development of our MS program. Actually, I don’t mind where in the world the school is, preferably English speaking but Chinese is okay.
Ultimately, I want to check out how the courses offered by the school feed into the club structure. Then just to see how the club structure works.
I guess I am wanting to make sure we’re getting it right for students and their development in robotics. Our US (Taipei American School)
You can consider coming over to singapore then.
The overlap of age is not an issue at all.
The training programme in Singapore starts right from 10yo onwards.
E.g. for my team 8059 or school, our students ranged from 12 to 18yo.
Almost all our members joined us at 12yo without prior knowledge of robotics.
We trained them from scratch.
And by the time they are 14yo, we packed them off and put them into HS teams, which by then, they should have acquired most of the fundamentals.
So there is really no issue with the age overlap.
And I dont think it is necessary that it must be a solely MS school.
PM me or email me if you need more info or help to link you up.
What I want to know is this: how do your teachers keep the kids from spending half their day on their video games? This seems to be a common complaint in the US and it’s a common pitfall for a lot of kids that would otherwise be very bright. Too often I feel like nothing I present to the kids can compete with all the flash and sparkle of an electronic fantasy world.
We have it more the other way around. Our club introduces kids to concepts ahead of the classroom. Concepts from physics and math are the most common things learned in Vex ahead of when they are taught in school. Robotics makes that ah-ha moment to help once they do get to the concepts in class.
Physics - forces, torque, projectile motion (this year), center of gravity, a bit of electricity concepts of voltage and current.
Math - vectors, trigonometry, learning the words less than in relation to 18"
Engineering - control loops, strength of materials, vibrations, momentum management, using tools
Wait, what was I saying again? Oh yea, it’s honestly is a struggle every day to compete for students attention. It seems that in the US, the average student is not held to very high standards in their home life. Because of this, teachers are constantly fighting just to get students to do the bare minimum. Even many of the very bright students have no ambition to go above and beyond to do their absolute best. Most are satisfied with “good enough”.
One problem seems to be parents’ reliance on video games as a sort of electronic babysitter. They park the kid on a device at an early age and the kids just get programmed that way. I’ve heard parents tell me “When they are on their games, I know where they are and what they’re doing and that nothing is going to happen to them.”
…And that “nothing”, I’m afraid, is precisely the problem.
Or dropping off at robots as a physical babysitter… “Dump and run” has over and over again created less engaged roboteers than those whose parents stay and mentor.
I bet my mentor wishes we were like this haha. We push him to the limits trying to have enough time to engineer our competition robot to be the best at any upcoming competition. I guess 5 class periods a week plus 1, sometimes 2 after school nights that can range from 4-8pm are not enough.
Video games cannot really compete against any reality STEAM/STEM concepts, or so I believe, so I feel once any student becomes engaged, they will stay engaged and will try their hardest in any classroom or any club.
My robotics members are mostly like this as well. I can’t complain about their work ethic the vast majority of the time. Overall, I have a very good group of students involved in robotics.
My (more negative comments) were general statements about the average young person these days. I teach 7-12th graders, so I see all kinds!