robot camp

I am amazed by how much is available for kids these days. How truly lucky we are to have so much at our fingertips to enrich and excite the imagination of children. It's something that we take for granted a lot of the time, but wow... what a wonderful opportunity for a child to be exposed to and explore any interest that motivates them.

One of the camps that Claire picked this summer was a Lego robotics camp. The Austin Children's museum ran the camp and walked kids through creating and programing a Lego Mindstorms robot. Through the week the kids built their robot and programmed it to complete several different challenges, like following a maze, sumo wrestling, etc. In the end the kids built a city for their robots. Each robot had a task in the city. Claire's robot worked at Target, which apparently the kids listed as a "must have" in order for a city to exist. Love that.

Her Robot was a checker at Target. He would greet you, walk up to your item and scan it, then walk away. I'm going to have to check with her, but I believe she used a motion sensor and a light sensor in her programs.

There were all sorts of different parts to the city. Some were quite elaborate. It was so fun to watch the kids show off their ideas. We also got to see some of the challenges the robots had completed through the week and Claire showed us some of the programs she had written. She did so great! She could tell us all about the programs, the sensors, the challenges. I really think she learned a lot.

Then we got to take her robot apart. Hayes loved that. He's into destruction.