125 students and 100 volunteers put engineering in action for National Robotics Week

From an employee idea to a global experience, JPMorganChase’s Tech for Social Good robotics challenge is giving students a practical way to build confidence with technology through hands-on problem solving.

That mission comes to life through GenerationTech, a program offering design or robotics-focused challenges where JPMorganChase volunteers mentor students ages 14-18 to explore how technology can address social good challenges.

In March, two GenerationTech events at JPMorganChase Technology Centers in Dallas and Glasgow brought students and employee mentors together around a shared technical objective: using Python to help a Pololu 3pi+ 2040 robot navigate a series of mazes with a fun twist. Students started with code that was functional enough to run but flawed enough to fail under pressure, exactly the kind of scenario that makes coding skills real. “Robots make it easier to understand. I have coded before but never used robots,” a Glasgow student shared. Students tackled the same type of maze-navigation problems on the same robot, using engineering fundamentals like logic, testing and collaboration.

Students divided tasks, compared approaches and learned to explain their thinking clearly enough for someone else to build on it, underscoring the idea of technology as a team sport. “It was really cool to see the students naturally adopt an iterative pattern of working. They’d set themselves a goal, work together on the solution, test out the robot on the maze then discuss what went wrong and what they'd need to do next. Their cycles were rapid but were very similar to how we develop our software day to day,” a Glasgow-based employee volunteer shared.

With nearly 400 students and 300 employee volunteers engaged since launching the robotics model of GenerationTech in 2023 and thousands more through other versions of the program, the scale matters, but the deeper impact is personal. “This event prioritizes teamwork and encourages everyone to contribute, which helped us learn code and work together to solve problems,” a Plano student shared. Students continue to leave these events with proof that they can work through ambiguity, improve a complex system and thrive in technology even if they didn’t walk in thinking they could.