Integrated STEAM education through global robotics art festival (GRAF)

Robotics is all about STEM and art is tightly coupled with all the STEM components. A robotics art festival integrating robotics and arts was launched in Michigan in November 2013 to foster interest and engage students in STEM success. Pre-college students entered computer programmed interactive robotics projects in categories: visual arts and performing arts. 13 teams participated in the inaugural event from 2 U. S. States, Canada, and Mexico. Projects demonstrated creative applications of STEM subjects into art projects. Student survey results show that integrating arts with robotics was an effective hands-on paradigm that even brings beauty, joy, fun, and creativity while learning STEM subjects and computing.