CRESTVIEW — There’s much more to Lego Robotics Camp than the beehive of activity that first meets the eye upon entering the Davidson Middle School robotics lab.
Each day of the weeklong camp, which concluded yesterday with a bout of competitions, found the fourth- through eighth-grade campers tackling a variety of missions.
While constructing and programming robots are the focus of the camp, the kids also learn valuable lessons about teamwork, peer mentoring and encouraging one another.
Camp leaders Laurie Allen and Tim Sexton, robotics teachers at Shoal River and Davidson Middle Schools, respectively, said those collaborative skills are just as valuable for future engineers as technical knowledge.
“We get them excited now and then they move into our robotics classes and then they become fabulous engineers,” Allen said.
“It’s our biggest year yet,” Sexton, said, saying 34 students are in the camp.
PEER MENTORS
Wednesday morning the campers, working in teams of two or three students, had to program their robots to traverse a course, grab a “package,” reverse course, turn and deposit it in a “warehouse.”
As with real world engineering projects, it was a case of “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” But in robotics camp, there are frequently many, many tries.
Older students, including some high schoolers, mentor the younger kids.
But often, the campers who’ve successfully completed the mission then mentor their peers who are still debugging their robots’ programs.
“Their arms were too short, so when they would reach out to grab the cube, it wouldn’t reach,” Antioch Elementary fifth-grader Alex Hodgell said as he assisted fourth-graders Dalton Morgan, of Baker School, and Riverside Elementary’s Ryan Dumphy.
Under Alex’s guidance, Dalton and Ryan’s robot soon cruised down the course and successfully gathered the target.
MOMENTS OF TRIUMPH
Former Shoal River student Jacob Thursby, now a Niceville High sophomore, said he intends to return to Allen’s classes, time permitting, to help motivate her robotics students.
With his assistance, Shoal River sixth-graders Damion Brooks and Dylan Nearbin triumphed over a pesky programming error that kept their robot from going backwards.
“It went great!” Damion said. “We finally figured out what the problem was.”
Those moments of triumph are generally accompanied by cheers and happy dances by both the successful programmers and their supportive fellow campers.
For Allen and Sexton, such “light bulb” moments are music to their ears.
“It’s so awesome when they see it work,” Allen said.
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview robotics camp teaches programming and collaborative skills