WATERBURY, Conn. (WTNH) — Some Waterbury students will have a new opportunity this summer: Twelve fourth and fifth graders are learning about robotics this week, gaining useful skills at a young age.
Many kids spend their summers playing with LEGO bricks. Not many spend their summers building and programming LEGO robots.
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“You get a bucket with everything you need, you log into the computer with your Lego spike, and it gives you instructions on how to build it,” fourth-grader Piper Swenden said.
This is all part of Waterbury Public Schools’ Robotics Camp, run by First Robotics, and their idea is to make the whole thing hands-on.
“It’s because kids are playing with Lego, and kids love Lego,” said Lisa Norman, coordinator for First Robotics Connecticut. “They’re immediately hooked, and they’re learning as they play. It’s like weaving learning under the hood.”
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It’s going well. After a week, they already know how to program different things.
“You can program it to move, you can program it to sense things,” said fifth-grader Tuli Risch. “It can do all kinds of things.”
Not only is building and programming robots super cool, but as they continue to be refined, students will be learning a highly sought-after skill for today’s workforce.
That’s why the state’s Manufacturing Innovation Fund provided a grant to help fund the camp.
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“It’s not just technical skills, it’s the soft skills of working together as a team, collaborating and competing, but also helping each other out when you’re competing,” Norman said. “It’s a lot of fun and the kids learn too.”
For some, what they are studying will be the foundation for their future careers.
“I want to be a mechanical engineer when I grow up,” Swenden said.
At Robotics First, we like to say that kids aren’t building robots, we’re raising kids with robots.
