Backpack programmers

Backpack programmers

Students try their hand at elevator design, vehicle development in school

There’s no pencils or paper required for eighth-grade Robotics’ final class projects.

Da’sean Taylor, Olyvia Zuspan and Seth Boggess are puzzling over elevator plans in one corner of the room; their classmates are working on spinning road signs and small vehicles at the surrounding tables. It’s a well-established, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) -focused course in Charles City Middle School by now, but for parents and other community members, the hands-on class work may not be as familiar as woodshop once was.

These eighth-graders will build three out of nine available project plans from scratch, teacher Jesse White said. The course, which White has been teaching for three years now, starts by teaching students the basics of gearwork and mechanisms before ushering them into programming. The three final projects make students combine those skills, White said.

“They build it, and they have to program it and see how well they do,” White said. “They build everything from scratch. They don’t have any pictures to go off of; they come up with the whole thing on their own.”

Taylor, Zuspan and Boggess must program their elevator to make a stop at three levels, but there’s trouble at the moment with the basics.

“We need to get the motor to work. We can’t connect it,” Zuspan said, untangling a wire.

The group started with the elevator because it was the easiest, but wants to move on to a car plan next, Taylor said.

“We’ve made cars to do races before. It’s actually fun,” he added. “The most challenging part is programming it, trying to put all the information that we need back into the computer.”

Part of the lessons is learning how to work as a team, White said.

“Ninety percent of it is problem because they have to figure out what’s wrong with it and how to fix it,” White said.

The class fits in perfectly with Zuspan’s interests, she said.

“I don’t like writing, I just like being loud and stuff,” Zuspan admitted.

For Taylor, watching it come together is it’s own reward.

“We’re putting a lot of effort into it,” Taylor said.

By Kate Hayden khayden@charlescitypress.com