Adding Robotics to the Curriculum

Robots are taking over Catholic Charities’ Northside Child Development Center (NCDC)! Monte (right) and Ca’Jun (left), 10-year-old students at NCDC, partnered with Mairin, a senior at Visitation High School, to start a robotics club and share new subject matter with their classmates.

 

Diving In to a New Challenge

Neither Monte nor Ca’Jun had experience with robotics prior to the school year. “To be honest, I didn’t even know about robotics before this”, Ca’Jun stated, “but we just started doing it.” This meant tackling new challenges each session—from turning wrenches to writing code on their computer.

Over the course of 8 weeks, Monte, Ca’Jun, and Mairin used their kit from Visitation to construct a fully functional remote-control car. The trio explained that they first had to assemble the robot’s various moving parts before mounting the battery and programming their controller to command movement.

 

A Student Becomes the Teacher

Mairin is currently on the Robotics Team at Visitation and has been doing robotics since middle school. She began volunteering at the recommendation of one of her teachers so that she could share some of her knowledge with younger students. Mairin explained that she felt comfortable leading the group at NCDC, saying, “I had done a summer camp at school before, I knew how [a project] worked, and I knew what a robotics club could look like.”

When asked what she has taken away from her experiences at NCDC, Mairin said, “It’s just been so cool to see the creative ideas that the kids come up with, knowing what they want to do, and showing up every week and working on it. And then making it happen—having never done it before.”

Word spread through the school following the completion of Ca’Jun and Monte’s robot, and now a group of girls at NCDC is working with Mairin to build a robot of their own. Their plans are classified for now, but they did reveal that the robot will move, and LED lights will be involved in their project.

 

Looking Ahead to the Future of Robotics Club

Because NCDC only has one kit at their disposal, Monte and Ca’Jun will have to wait until the girls finish their project before they can work on another build. Ca’Jun said that, “when we get it back, we’re probably going to build a motorcycle.”

With the future in mind, Monte said that he wants to use the skills he’s learning and teach them to others—and especially, he said, “I want to teach my little brother.” Monte’s younger brother is three years old and also attends NCDC, pictured above during this year’s Family Picture Day!