Tell a group of middle school children to study for a standardized math test, and you will see very few happy faces. Take that same desire to teach children STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math – and turn it into a Robotics Camp, suddenly jeers turn to cheers. The students will not only have more fun, but the hands-on experience helps them remember lessons far beyond any “test date.”
Western Nebraska Community College’s Business and Community Outreach division began offering the Robotics Camp on campus in 2006. Discovery Lab Facilitator Rod Businga has administered the lessons since 2011, and his dedication shows as he guides children through the development, assemblage, programming, and testing robots built from Lego Mindstorms kits. “The system allows you to do some really cool math and science,” he says. Students meanwhile scrutinize data at their monitors and test their whirring and beeping machines on the floor, working in teams to solve software errors and mechanical failures faced in the design of any complex machine.
In fact, the robot challenges Businga assigns go far beyond what some might expect children under 12 to solve. The directive on an overhead project tells students to “devise a method of guiding your robot from one place in the room to another, without touching it – only yelling, waving, and shining a flashlight at it.” Students meet the challenge and go beyond. They program their machines’ brains to talk to the various sound, motion, and light sensors on the body, process that data, and send electrical signals to their robots’ various servomotors. Their inventions soon navigate obstacles, swing arms to knock over structures blocking them, and even play simple tunes from their miniature speakers, as though pleased to whistle while they work.
The students seem just as happy. When a news reporter arrives to feature the camp, the kids race to show their inventions to the camera. They hardly appear to notice the lessons in mechanical design, software programming, problem-solving, and basic teamwork that they learn along the way in this applied, “beyond the classroom” setting. We hope the lesson that math and science are fun lasts a lifetime.
For information on learning programs for K-12 students at the WNCC Discovery Center, contact Rod Businga at 308.635.6720 or email him at busingar@wncc.edu. For information on Business and Community Education for adults, contact Dean of Economic and Community Development Judy Amoo 308.635.6702 or email amooj@wncc.edu.