Best and Brightest 2017: Student’s focus goes from robotics to business – Colorado Springs Gazette

This is the seventh of 20 profiles of The Gazette's Best and Brightest Class of 2017.

One wouldn't think that using engineering techniques to create a robot would inspire a student to major in business administration.

But that is what happened to Jessica Mills, an Air Academy High School senior.

This all started when she joined a robotics team in fourth grade. She recalls they made a robot that was able to pick up a tiny polar bear. "I remember it because it was cute," she says.

As the years passed, competition got more serious. This year, for the first time in 14 years, Academy School District 20's robotics team, to which she belongs, qualified for the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) world championship in Houston.

She's been a Girl Scout since first grade, and she used technology to earn the Gold Award. The group's highest achievement is awarded to only about 5.4 percent of members.

She won by creating a program called STEM@LIBRARY21c. The idea for the project came when she noticed that the new tech-oriented Pikes Peak Library 21c, didn't seem to have a lot of programs to get younger children involved in STEM (science, technology engineering math).

After consulting with librarians she developed a three-day workshop to introduce youngsters to the free design software and 3-D printers at the library. She also wrote a curriculum based on the workshop and provided it locally and to 49 libraries in 18 states, and Canada.

"I was so excited when one boy told me he used the workshop skills to make a wind turbine that won a science fair."

She also finds history fascinating, and for two summers has been a teen docent at the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. And she participates in Academic WorldQuest, a World Affairs Councils of America competition that tests knowledge of history, geography, culture and international affairs. Mills and her team qualified to compete nationally in Washington, D.C., this spring.

But like a lot of high school students bound for college, she says she overloaded on academic and community work last year. A friend died. As she struggled, her grades fell.

"It was a moment of clarity. I need to choose what is really meaningful to me. Slow down, know my limits. It's a lesson I will take to college."

She will major in business administration at the University of Colorado at Boulder with emphasis on marketing and entrepreneurship.

How does that major square with all that STEM and robotics involvement?

For the past two years she was elected chief executive officer for the Rocky Mountain Robotics Club, managing 134 student engineers from six area high schools. She redid the team's business plan and was part of the marketing effort to get industry sponsors.

"The business program at CU feels like home. I think I might like to start a company someday."

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Best and Brightest 2017: Student's focus goes from robotics to business - Colorado Springs Gazette