The Clavius Project, which has provided robotics and STEM education to local Catholic schools since 2014, received a donation of $612,000 from the Thomas Schilli Foundation. With this funding and a new partnership with St. Louis University, Clavius is poised to expand its reach in the coming years.

“Forming a partnership with SLU and the Schilli Foundation will provide treasure, talent and time from a wide array of resources,” said Clavius Project Director Jeff Pitts. “This will allow the Clavius Project to grow both vertically (more schools) and horizontally (more STEM offerings), making the Clavius Project more impactful to our underserved communities than ever before.”

Named after German Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Christopher Clavius, the Clavius Project aims to introduce STEM topics to students in underserved areas. It was started by a group of SLUH Robotics students in 2014 who wanted to combine their passions for robotics and community service. A grant from the Innovative Technology Education Fund allowed them to kickstart the project, and they were advised by Pitts.

“Eight years later, we have the Clavius Project and a new partnership with SLU and the Schilli Foundation that will ensure that Clavius will live and grow for years to come,” said Pitts. “Before the pandemic, we were serving over 50 schools and nearly 2000 middle school students in our region and in Belize.”

Coming out of the pandemic, Clavius had to contend with fewer participating schools due to remaining Covid precautions. Still, 34 schools participated in the project this year, and 29 attended the Jamboree that took place in the Danis Field House this past Saturday, April 30 after being postponed from January. 

The new funding from the Schilli Foundation will help invigorate the program coming out of the pandemic. The foundation is dedicated to the deceased alumnus Thomas Schilli ’64 and has made significant donations to SLUH in the past. This donation will help cover costs for the materials necessary to demonstrate STEM to students.

During the program, high school student mentors, many of them SLUH Robotics students but some De Smet and Rosati Kain students, visit an assigned school once a week to lead students in building and coding Lego Mindstorm EV3 robots and preparing for different challenges at the Jamboree. 

“It was very much a passive learning,” said junior Peter Roither. “We let them figure it out mainly, and if truly they did not know what to do, that's when we would swoop in and help.”

Although smaller than usual, last weekend’s Jamboree was still a successful event, providing students from all around the city a chance to come together and compete in friendly challenges while deepening their understanding of robots.

“In the past, we've had to do two sessions of the Jamboree, but this year, we could only do one, which I think was really nice,” said Robotics coach Robyn Wellen. “All of the schools are there at the same time and participating. It ran very smoothly thanks to all of our volunteers that were there helping to set up and to work with the schools themselves, and then to cleanup afterwards.”

Clavius has concluded for this school year, but its leaders plan to return in the fall with the goal of reaching more schools without access to STEM education. With oversight from SLU and financial support from the Schilli Foundation, the Clavius Project is geared for a successful post-pandemic revival.