The robot they’d just finished building had a problem, and the group of Polk County workers involved in its construction were deep in thought trying to find the cause.

Designed to detect the color of incoming blocks and drop each block in a bin matching the color, the robot worked almost perfectly, placing blue in blue, red in red and green in green. But yellow blocks kept dropping into the blue bin, keeping the team huddled around the robot focused on resolving the issue.

The high-tech dilemma didn’t occur in a new lab or warehouse, but in a classroom at Polk County High School, where a group of rising fifth and sixth graders spent a week learning about robotics as part of a new Polk County Schools initiative.

The AIG Summer Seminars, funded by the Polk County Community Foundation, features five separate classes this summer designed to challenge students on topics ranging from bridge building to applied writing to water stewardship. Polk County faculty members are teaching the classes, some with help from Polk County High School students, some of whom have participated in Duke University’s Talent Identification Program in past summers and are bringing knowledge gained from that experience to the local courses.

The Lego Robotics course, offered to students entering grades five and six and taught by Polk County High science teacher Leslie Rhinehart, served as the second of the five week-long courses. Students were selected by school personnel and invited to participate in the classes in order to keep classes small. The Applied Writing and Literature course for rising eighth and ninth graders and taught by Polk County High English teacher Carrie Baris began the courses.

Still to come are Bridge Building (for rising fourth and fifth graders and taught by Polk County Middle STEM educator Linley Foster), Water Stewardship (for rising seventh and eighth graders and taught by PCMS science teachers Elisa Flynn and Stephanie Luedi) and Civilizations (for rising 10th and 11th graders and taught by PCHS social studies teacher Dawn Forward).

“We really wanted to engage these students, no matter what their interests are,” said Polk County Schools superintendent Aaron Greene. “This is a way to do that, to extend learning beyond the school year. We definitely appreciate the Polk County Community Foundation making this possible.”

During the robotics course, students learned the basics of robotics as well as received an introduction to computer programming. Students not only built small robots, but also learned to write programs that allowed the robots to travel in a figure eight, grab objects, stay on a table without falling off and search for and identify a certain color placed on the table. The students also tackled a larger build and modified the program for the color sorting machine.

“Seeing these kids engaged and collaborating with one another, it’s an excellent way for children from all four elementary schools to meet each other before the transition to middle school,” said Ronette Dill, Polk County Schools director of curriculum and instruction. “Technology is one area in which these kids are so interested, and this is giving them the chance to advance that interest beyond video games.”

The opportunity to build upon his interest in programming and to do so with friends and classmates proved one of the best parts of the week for robotics student Kai Goldstein, a rising fifth grader at Polk Central Elementary.

“My favorite part would be getting to work with my friends and build cool robots,” Goldstein said. “Getting to build robots with my friends and getting to program, because I love programming.”

Helping class members with programming, as well as the robot builds, were Polk County High seniors Alana Seay, Samuel Kornmayer and Sam Rhinehart.

“The class was similar to TIP in that a tough curriculum was built and there were people who knew the subject there who were able to help,” Sam Rhinehart said.

Both Greene and Dill hope the initial foray into the summer sessions is the foundation of something much larger.

“It would be nice to build on this and expand on this next summer, to offer more camps for more students,” Dill said.

– article submitted by PolkStudents.com