Summer Camp Highlights: Week 3, Featuring Robotics Camp!

Robotics is the best gateway for young students to start learning technology. Campers built several different projects including science exploration robots, satellites, flood gates, and various animal robots, using LEGO WeDo, EV3 Mindstorms, and Ozobot. After mastering the building fundamentals, campers learned coding basics to make their robot move and react intelligently to its surroundings.

EV3 SumoBot Competition!

During the beginning of the week, campers began with doing structured builds to grasp the basics principles and free building exercises to stretch their imaginations. For each build, our instructors would provide explanations as to how the sensors operate.

Next, they had a racing day where they were taught gear ratios and how to build and race robots against each other. Campers also had a battle day where they were taught about the engineering design process. Campers then built a battle robot using all the knowledge they’ve acquired throughout the week.

It should noted that the robots they’ve built up until Wednesday were built using instructions–the racing robot and the battle robot were not. Those robots were designed and built by them with limited help from instructors.

“The battle was a lot of fun for everyone and it showed me that the campers really learned something from the week. I didn’t think they’d be so interested in competing against each other but they really were enthusiastic about it and there wasn’t any animosity between them during the competition. Only support, which is always nice to see!” – Aaron, Instructor

Ozobot Racing!

On your marks, get set, program! Campers put their programming skills to the test by racing their Ozobots!

Campers began the week by learning the color-coding system, where they used special Ozobot markers to create pathways consisting of different patterns that produced various outcomes whenever the Ozobot passed over it.

After learning the basics, campers used the iPad to program their Ozobots! The important difference here is that now they were able to create more precise and complex commands, which required more thought compared to mapping out the commands with markers. The code inputted controls the speed and direction the Ozobot goes in, so the better your code the better your chances of winning!