By DANAE KING
Record Herald Writer
Courtesy of the Weekly Record Herald; Printed on July 29, 2011
WEST MILTON – Milton-Union Schools is hosting a summer robotics camp for students during the weeks of July 25 to July 29 and August 1 to August 5. This is the second year for the camp and the district hopes to continue it in the future as well.
The camp is for grades two to 12 and is broken into two age groups, grades two to four in the morning and grades five and up in the afternoon for the first week. The second week of the camp is more focused on older students and the morning session is for grades five to eight, while the afternoon session is for grades five and up. The first session is from 9-11:30 a.m. and the second session is from 12:30-3 p.m. and all the sessions are hosted in the Milton-Union Middle School Library and are free to students.
The purpose of the camp is to familiarize the students with the concepts of engineering, machining and manufacturing, said Scott Bloom, Director of Curriculum and Student Services for Milton-Union Schools.
“I saw we didn’t have anything like this here for our kids and I need them to have an understanding of what some technical fields look like that they can actually work in as adults,” Bloom said. “This is a good time to get them familiar … we’re trying to go slow so we don’t overwhelm anybody and we don’t add more than we can actually handle.”
The district is trying to build interest with the students in science and engineering related fields. The emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning at Milton-Union Schools began with a robotics camp last summer and then continued during the school year with a robotics club for middle school students. Now with the summer camp being hosted for the second year, Bloom hopes to expand even more in the future.
“We’re trying to actually have a class next year that is based on just STEM learning or science and engineering learning and use this as sort of a centerpiece for it and then have Lego League come out of that,” Bloom said. “I do want our kids to understand that these opportunities are out there.”
The camp will hopefully serve to encourage students to have the confidence to pursue careers in STEM related fields, Bloom said.
“I’m trying to expose them to the concept that with some work and with some studying, I can do this work and I can grow up and I can be gainfully employed. I can get a job that really has meaning to me and that I enjoy, in these fields,” Bloom said.
Bloom, along with a few volunteer teachers, help introduce the kids to programming and building during the camp.
“Since these are legos, the kids are fairly familiar with the construction part and how they go together,” Blooms said. “So we spend time teaching how to program, we spend time teaching how to put things together.”
Bloom helped secure grant funds to pay for the camp, gathered the supplies and helped organize the camp activities. He also serves as the primary facilitator and instructor with the kids during the camp, along with teachers who have volunteered their time.
Bloom said he wants the kids to know that if you do the right thing for a living, it’s fun and it’s not work for you, just like playing with legos.
The morning session next week will focus on simple and motorized machines and is designed for grades five to eight. This session is more focused on engineering than programming, Bloom said.
The afternoon session next week is for grades five and up and sort of follows what is learned in the morning session. This session focuses on the Project Green Challenge and students must program their robots to complete green tasks.
For more information on the camp, call Milton-Union Schools at (937) 884-7910.
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