The robot sits in the circle called "home," waiting for instructions. Fifth-grader Leah Grider presses a button, and suddenly her coded commands spring to life as the small wheeled machine navigates across the challenge board, executing each mission with mechanical precision.

This moment represents the culmination of careful planning, team collaboration, and the coding skills that Leah has been developing since third grade in Momence's innovative STEM program.

"Working with robots and coding," Leah says simply when asked what she enjoys most about STEM. Her brevity belies the complexity of what she's mastered—programming robots to perform specific tasks in exact sequences to earn points in competition.

The challenge board resembles a tabletop game with raised edges and Velcro attachments to secure various obstacles and targets. Teams of students from multiple grade levels compete to solve missions, with each successful task earning valuable points. Leah explains the process matter-of-factly: "On the Chromebook, you code the code, and then you put it on the robot."

This technical description offers a glimpse into her methodical thinking. Like coding itself, Leah's approach to learning is sequential and purposeful. Each instruction must be precise. Each step must happen in the correct order. Success depends on attention to detail and problem-solving skills that transfer well beyond the robotics table.

As one of the team's coders, Leah has found her niche. When teammates bring different strengths to their collaborative efforts—some focusing on attachments, others on strategy—Leah often gravitates toward programming. This natural inclination toward logical thinking shapes not only her current interests but potentially her future as well.

"Probably be a doctor," she says when asked about her career aspirations. Not just any doctor, but "a surgery doctor"—a surgeon, whose work demands the same precision and sequential thinking that coding requires.

The parallel between programming robots and performing surgery isn't coincidental. Both require meticulous planning, careful execution, and the ability to anticipate complications. Both demand confidence in one's decisions and the courage to implement them. In many ways, Leah's current passion for coding is excellent preparation for her medical aspirations.

Now in her third year of STEM education, Leah balances her technological interests with traditional subjects. She's tackling fractions and decimals in math, enjoying her team-teaching fifth-grade teachers (Ms. Henson, Mr. Sansone, and Ms. Mann), and finding time to read—with Nicholas Sparks among her favorite authors.

This well-rounded approach to education reflects Momence's commitment to developing the whole student. In the library where she's being interviewed, surrounded by books that transport readers to different worlds, Leah represents the perfect synthesis of humanities and STEM education—a young person equally comfortable with coding languages and literary narratives.

As she continues through fifth grade and looks ahead to middle school, Leah carries with her valuable lessons from her robotics experience: the importance of sequence, the satisfaction of solving problems, and the power of collaboration. These skills will serve her well whether she ultimately chooses medicine, technology, or another path entirely.

For now, though, she's focused on the challenges directly in front of her—helping her team score points on the robotics board, mastering more advanced math concepts, and enjoying the community she describes simply as "really good."

In the circle called "home" where her robots begin their journeys, Leah Grider is programming more than just mechanical movements. With each line of code she writes, each competition she enters, and each step she takes in her education, she's programming her future—one carefully sequenced instruction at a time.

Perhaps someday, the same hands that now press a button to start a robot's journey will hold surgical instruments, healing patients with the same precision and care. And when that day comes, she might look back and recognize that her path began right here, in a circle called "home," with a robot waiting for her command.