•one area of Seymour High School’s library, kids follow instructions to build a robot.
After 20 minutes, they move to an area to learn about programming a robot.
Then they spend the final 20 minutes using what they learned to participate in one of three challenges.
The kickoff for the new Leap Into Robotics program in Jackson County was considered a success by Heather Schneider, Jackson County’s 4-H youth development educator with Purdue Extension Jackson County.
Sixty-one kids and adults attended Monday night’s event, which sparked interest in joining 4-H, attending a Lego Robotics Camp this summer and being a part of a new county 4-H robotics club.
“Oh my goodness, it was overwhelming. It was so exciting,” Schneider said of the turnout at the kickoff event, open to Grades 3 through 12.
In January, Schneider and Seymour High School librarians Jill Railsback and Malia Rose received training on the Lego Mindstorms Education EV3 kits.
They also talked about other ways to get kids involved in new opportunities, but they had no idea how many would be interested.
“It’s just letting the kids know that there’s a place in 4-H for them and just putting everybody’s resources together for youth in Jackson County. That’s what it’s about,” Schneider said.
Since people had to RSVP for the kickoff event, Schneider discovered there was interest in robotics. She said it was good to see that shine through during Monday’s event.
“Just to see the parents talking to each other, the parents interacting with their kids, some of them just kind of sat back and let the kids do it, which was great,” she said. “There weren’t a lot of people hovering trying to tell their kids that they were doing it right or wrong, and the kids were engaged in the learning. I think it was very, very exciting.”
Jackson County was one of 14 Indiana counties to receive a grant from Duke Energy for Leap Into Robotics. About $6,000 was allocated for the county to receive 15 Lego Mindstorms Education EV3 kits and two expansion kits.
Duke Energy funded the opportunity as a way to help increase opportunities in STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — education for rural counties, said Erika Bonnett, Extension specialist of 4-H science initiatives with Indiana 4-H youth development.
One of the requirements for grant recipients is to conduct a free kickoff event. Bonnett helped man the challenge area Monday night, while parents helped at other stations along with Jeremy Wischmeier, adviser of Seymour High School’s robotics club, and some of his students.
Railsback said students had visited the library in the past week to help assemble nine robots for the programming and challenge stations.
“Some kids would show up at the same time. They didn’t come down together, but they showed up at the same time, and they worked together and got these robots put together,” she said.
Students at the high school soon will have other opportunities to tinker with robots and participate in other activities in the library as MakerSpace is established.
Later this month and running through the end of the school year, Schneider will visit the library once a week for Power Hour from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. She will introduce different material each time and leave supplies for students to use.
“We can’t hardly do anything before or after school,” Railsback said. “Kids ride the bus, and that limits the time that they have to do anything extra, so the Power Hour is going to offer that opportunity.”
With students already visiting the library during lunchtime, Railsback expects MakerSpace to go over well.
“We have found that if we do put something out and one kid is working on it, it kind of attracts more kids,” she said. “When we promote this, I think we’re going to get some kids. They like to figure things out on their own.”
Jackie Hill, workforce director with Jackson County Industrial Development Corp., also attended Monday’s event. She provided information about the Lego Robotics Camp and had several sign up that night.
The camp for children in Grades 3 through 6 will be June 6 through 10 at the Jackson County Learning Center in Seymour.
After that camp, Schneider plans to find an adult volunteer to lead a year-round county 4-H robotics club for Grades 3 through 12. She already has had a couple of parents express interest in that position.
All Jackson County high schools have robotics clubs, and it’s trickling down into some middle schools. Schneider said she hopes this club will give students another way to learn more about robotics.
Elijah Plasse and Nolan Brandenburg, both 9 and students at Crothersville Elementary School, attended Monday’s kickoff event and are excited about offerings centered around robotics.
Elijah, who attended the event with his father, Steve, said he would be interested in joining a robotics club. The first-year 4-H’er said he liked getting the opportunity to program a robot and wants to learn more.
“Learning new stuff about robotics, how to build them, how to program them and how to use them, you’re more experienced in the field if you ever want to get into a job that involves this,” he said. “(Robots) are just really cool, and you can make them do amazing stuff.”
Nolan has been in 4-H for four years and said he had fun learning more about robotics Monday night.
“It’s pretty hard at first, but once you get used to it, it’s really, really easy,” he said.
Nolan’s mother, Rita Brandenburg, said her son is always exploring anything that involves building, so Leap Into Robotics is the perfect fit.
“He just likes to build, so the aspects of learning the programming side of it, too, to be able to make them move and make them do things, it’s a good introduction to programming for him at this age,” she said.
Rita Brandenburg said she wasn’t able to learn about robots at Nolan’s age.
“Computers were just starting. We had Apples, and RadioShack was the place to go for this stuff,” she said. “So (her son and other kids) are kind of getting in on the ground floor of it to where in 20, 30 years, when they have kids, they might know a little more about it than what I do to be able to explain it.”
Nolan signed up for the Lego Robotics Camp and also may join the 4-H robotics club.
“It’s great they are really expanding and getting more things for them to do with 4-H outside of the regular, traditional things,” Rita Brandenburg said. “To offer them things that normally you wouldn’t see in Jackson County, things that are outside of this area that you always see kids doing, it’s neat for them to have something here locally like that.”
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”At a glance” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Any adult interested in volunteering to lead a new year-round 4-H robotics club in Jackson County may contact Heather Schneider at 812-358-6101 or [email protected].
Anyone seeking information about joining a 4-H club or starting a SPARK club in Jackson County also may contact Schneider.
Information about 4-H also is posted on the Purdue Extension Jackson County Facebook page.
[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”If you go” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
What: Lego Robotics Camp
When: 9 a.m. to noon June 6 through 10
Where: Jackson County Learning Center, 323 Dupont Drive, Seymour
Who: Children in grades 3 through 6
Cost: $50 (includes a camp T-shirt, prizes and snacks); checks should be made payable to Jackson County Industrial Development Corp.; deadline to register is May 20
About: Guided by Joe Fuehne, associate professor of mechanical engineering technology and director of Purdue Polytechnic-Columbus, the camp sessions will consist of hands-on experiences focused on the use of Lego bricks to learn robotics. Campers will learn how to build a Lego robot, attach sensors to it and control its movement with a program that uses information from those sensors.
Information: To register, contact Jackie Hill or Jody Deckard at 812-522-4951, [email protected] or [email protected]; to learn more about the camp, contact Fuehne at 812-348-2040
[sc:pullout-text-end]