- Maria Estrada's children won a total of more than $67,000 in science fair prizes.
- Her son, John, became interested in AI, robotics and electronics through video games.
- Although Estrada was initially concerned about his son's video gaming habit, she now sees some benefits to it.
This essay is based on a conversation with Maria Estrada, 51, a lecturer in plant science at Fresno State University and a mother of two teenagers. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Both my children love competing in science fairs, and together they have won over $67,000 in prize money for their projects.
As immigrant parents, my husband and I are a bit strict and make sure our kids follow the rules.
You have to be respectful and considerate. It's part of the Filipino culture. We try to emphasize to our students that academics are important, but you also have to be well-rounded.
But screen time is probably one of the things I'm not so great at. My son, John, loves video games, especially Mario and Pokemon.
He started playing games on a handheld Nintendo console in fifth or sixth grade, then got a PlayStation, and could play for hours.
I tried to control his video game usage a little bit to prevent him from becoming addicted to them. I didn't want him to hate me, and I value moderation, so I tried to keep it moderate. On most school days, I told him to do his homework first.
Every technology has its pros and cons. At first, I only thought about the negative aspects. I don't want my kids to use the computer too much.
I saw a lot of articles about kids starting to use computers, smartphones, iPads at an early age, and I felt that it could be harmful to children.
He then discovered that the game sparked his interest in computers, which especially helped him with his science fair project.
After a while, I realized that his video game habit had many benefits.
My kids learned to code through games.
Initially playing on consoles, John soon began playing games on computers as well, which is when he began to look into how games were made and his curiosity about coding was piqued.
So I enrolled my son and daughter, Pauline, in an after-school program where they learned to code.
The pair later put their coding skills to use while developing an AI model for a science fair project.
Video game controllers helped him excel in robotics
John is interested in electronics, and not just PlayStation 5 consoles. He even programmed a Lego robot when he was in the fifth grade.
But video games may have taken his son a step further: John was already so adept at using the controllers that he became interested in building remote-controlled cars and drones.
In middle school, he built and flew his own drones, something he wouldn't have been able to do if he hadn't mastered using a joystick in a video game.
Soon John was building drones and rovers for science fair projects.
Children's electronics project wins award
Eventually the kids needed a workshop for their science projects, so we converted our big casual living room into one big table with chairs.
They built drones and rovers and cameras there. It was very messy. I would close the door so you couldn't see the mess of wires and cables. There was a lot of electronics there.
In 2021, 16-year-old John Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF)who won first place in the plant science category with $5,000, developed an AI model to detect drought stress in peppers using a robotic infrared camera he built himself.
John and Pauline worked together on their next science fair project, which expanded on the concept with tomato seedlings and a rover.
Their project will participate in ISEF in 2022 and won first place in the Plant Sciences category.
Now, John is studying Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley – after all, gaming is what got him there.
