Summer Fun With Robots

By Eliza Hallabeck

“We learned about robots,” Parks & Recreation specialty advisor Nicole McAleer said before students in the introductory course turned on laptops to discover how they would soon be telling their robots what to “think.”

“The computer allows us to be the robot planner,” Ms McAleer said. “The computer allows us to decide what we are going to do.”

 The students in this summer’s introductory level robotics camp, which was held at Hawley School Monday through Thursday, August 3 to 6, learned how to assemble Lego robots and how to use the computer to give those robots their “brain.”

Ms McAleer said the students learn the robots have a brain, body, and moves. Like humans, robots also take in information, process it, and react. By the second day of the camp, the students had already assembled their robots; then students planned to program their robots.

Also in during their week Ms McAleer said the students completed other projects, which included building and launching paper rockets with air from a balloon students jumped on, and creating paper cars with balloons and straws attached.

In the camp were Colin Tod, Jared Tod, Ben Schmidthanish, Molly Ma, Steven White, and Ian Durno.