Robot-Battlers Demonstrate Real Steel at Future Ready Robotics Camp

Genesis: Pathways to Success hosted its third week of A Summer of STREAM at JCD Elementary.

Photo provided.

(Ripley County, Ind.) - Genesis: Pathways to Success hosted its third week of A Summer of STREAM (Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) programming, featuring Future Ready Robotics Camp at Jac-Cen-Del Elementary School. The camp was open to 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade students from across Southeastern Indiana, and was held in two stages - one geared toward those with previous robotics experience, and the other toward beginners. In total, the camp welcomed 28 budding engineers, programmers, and creatives during the week, who worked in teams to design and build robots to compete in challenges and show off the skills they had worked so hard to develop.

The two stages of the camp were held mostly synchronously, with Stage 2, the advanced stage, occurring Monday through Friday (June 12th - June 16th), and Stage 1, for robotics novices and the mechanically curious, taking place Wednesday through Friday (June 14th - June 16th). On Monday and Tuesday, Stage 2 attendees got to heighten their mechanical and programming skills by learning how to build and autonomously program robots designed to compete in formal robotics competitions. Subsequently, on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, Stage 2 attendees worked alongside Stage 1 attendees who learned the basics of robotics and worked in teams to compete in a series of competitions, such as the 2023-2024 VEX IQ Challenge, freeze tag games, and head-to-head battlebots! During these latter days, Stage 1 attendees gained a wealth of knowledge while applying their engineering and coding abilities, as Stage 2 attendees did the same while serving as mentors and leaders to the rest of their groups.

During the week, campers were given the opportunity to learn from high school students involved with robotics teams and other experienced volunteers. In service of building their own robots for competitions at the end of the stages, campers were taught, and subsequently applied, knowledge of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely), project management and organization, how to set-up decision matrices for the purpose of testing and problem-solving, how to use and build prototypes, how build drive-trains, how to identify and utilize different parts, and how to program robots to be operated both autonomously and with a controller. These skills are valuable not only in robotics, but in projects of all kinds.

Volunteer, and South Ripley High School sophomore, Daymon Speer emphasized the value of these skills, opining, “[Robotics] helps you prepare yourself for the future. It sets you up with coding, being able to understand machines, gears, and sensors on a basic level. These are important for robotics, but they also teach you basic principles you can use in the future as a programmer or an engineer.” He went on to highlight their transferability to other areas of life and education. When asked to share his thoughts on the camp as a whole, he said, “Kids can learn traits they can use in real life - problem solving, quick-thinking, improvisation. Thinking on the go is important because when you have an issue during competition, you have to react quickly.” In this way, the camp took a focus on discipline agnostic applicable skills just as much as explicit technical abilities.

The camp even equipped students with the tools to cultivate useful practices and habits for life beyond the classroom, teaching goal organization, time management, problem-solving, and encouraging teamwork. Each camper had a notebook in which to track the development of their robots through different stages. While logging and tracking their work, they worked alongside team members to build their bots, in the process, utilizing each member’s unique skill set throughout each phase.

When asked his thoughts on working with a team on a robotics project, camper Landon Jolly said, “It depends on your team, and what they’re good at. If you have a bunch of people that can do the same thing, it will function, but it won’t be the best function. The best teams are when you have people that can do a bunch of different things so that it functions the best.” This speaks to the value of utilizing each team member’s unique skills and talents.

Genesis: Pathways to Success would like to thank Jac-Cen-Del Elementary School for being gracious hosts - allowing the camp to utilize their space. We would also like to thank the volunteers from schools across the county, including Batesville, Jac-Cen-Del, Milan, South Ripley, and St. Louis. Thank you for passionately sharing your knowledge and expertise, and for encouraging education locally! Genesis looks forward to hosting Future Ready Robotics Camp again in the summer of 2024.

If you would like to learn additional information about this summer activity, please visit www.genesisp2s.org. If you have questions regarding A Summer of STREAM, please contact the Director of Genesis: Pathways to Success, Clarice Patterson, by emailing cpatterson@genesisp2s.org, calling 812-933-1098, or visiting 13 E. George Street, Suite B, Batesville, IN 47006.