With the growing need to educate young people about new technologies many public institutions are stepping up to the plate. Public school systems and workshops have existed for a long time, but now even museums are getting in on the action. Becker County Museum is hosting a robotics and 3D printing summer camp for 7-14 year old kids with the express purpose of teaching them various beginner and intermediate programming, robotics and manufacturing skills.
The program appears to be quite extensive, covering a range of topics including Scratch coding, computer aided design, 3D printing and robot programming. The 4-day camp, which ended Thursday, taught students to use TinkerCAD and develop their own prints at the 3D printing end. Another program taught the students how to how to program the Ozobots using simple pens and paper.
The students learn the trial and error process of robotics and 3D models showing off their skills over time. They even learn how to get functional Ozobots running. “The Ozobots are programmed with codes that are simple lines drawn on a piece of paper, in different colors,” said Becky Mitchell, the museum’s executive director. “The different colors and line sequences are the Ozobot’s language, that tells them what to do.”
The Museum Programs
Later in the week, some guest speakers from BTD Manufacturing and TEAM Industries visited. Representative from the two local businesses use computer coding and robotics as part of their manufacturing processes.
Kevin Mitchell and husband of Becky volunteered as a camp instructor at the museum for the week. He shared some of his experience with robotics and 3D printing with the students. After somewhat of a rough start, the program took off and provided grounded information to the attendees.
The camp is not done yet however. Another program will be available to other students in the winter.
“We’ll be doing both beginner and intermediate sessions,” said Becky Mitchell. “The camp will run from Dec. 26-28, with sessions for kids ages 7-10 from 9-11 a.m., and kids ages 11-14 from 1-3 p.m. Then on Saturday, Dec. 29, we’ll have another mini-robotics camp for kids ages 4-6 and their parents, from 10 a.m. to noon.”
Featured image courtesy of Vicki Gerdes / Tribune, retrieved via DL-Online.
