Our Future Programmers

Mrs. Hubbard and the Gifted Ed kids recently hosted a Robotics Night. Students ranging from second to eighth grade created projects or robots and presented them. Mrs. Hubbard, the gifted ed teacher, said, “The students are given a big idea then, they come up with an idea to present while working with support from me.”

The kids picked projects based off of the unit given to them which was computer programmers. Computer programming was picked, “because of the growing need for computer programmers in the workforce,” said Mrs. Hubbard.

The kids made different projects in their groups. Some used dominos and other objects to make chain affects, others used programming and coding to make drivable robots and even an electric guitar. These kids worked for eight weeks for around ninety minutes a week.

Jesse Ellison and Finnegan Harp created one of the electric guitars. They were able to make the sounds of each note programmed by a switch. After each note was hit it would light up on a screen to show it was played. The guitar played up to 25 notes and was even capable of playing a song if you knew how. Another project made was Sphero Ollie. Ollie was a small robot you could drive around, it had a small body with a wheel on each side and was controlled by a remote. Another one of the robots present that night was able to scan writing or small pictures and redraw it. Many other projects were made too. Along with the presentations each group also made a slideshow to help display information. All of the robots that were presented that night were Ozobots, Cable Car Robotics, Tin Can Robot, Programmable Guitar, Microbit, Makey Makey, Sphero, Sphero Ollie, and Dash Dot.