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Students program robots at Advanced Robocamp at UNT Dallas
Courtland White (l), 14, of Grand Prairie, watches as Collin Douglas, 16, of Desoto, claps to make their robot roll toward a ball. The students programmed their robot at UNT Dallas' advanced Robocamp July 13.
DALLAS— Local high school students are learning to program robots at an advanced “Robocamp” this week at the University of North Texas at Dallas. The students will present their completed projects to their parents July 15 at 3 p.m.
Three girls and 11 boys are participating in the advanced Robocamp workshop July 13-15. The purpose of the workshop is to get kids interested in engineering. The advanced workshop requires previous attendance at a Robocamp.
Students learn how to program Lego NXT robots which have three motors and four sensors. The more complex robots can perform more complex commands than the robots used in the basic Robocamp offered earlier in the summer.
Advanced Robocamp uses Mindstorm education software which comes with preset programs to control the robots. Students enjoy going on the Internet to see how other users have programmed more advanced robots to get an idea of what they want their robots to do.
Raven Watson, a senior in computer sciences at the University of North Texas in Denton, is working at Robocamp for the second year. She said she enjoys helping the students learn.
“It’s nice to see kids actually get into it, and it’s nice to see some girls here and to get more girls in engineering,” Watson said.
The University of North Texas Computer Science and Engineering Department hosts Robocamp to introduce young women and men entering the eighth through 12th grades to robotics, computer science and engineering. Faculty and students from UNT’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering lead the camps.
For More Information:
David Porter
Associate Director of Marketing, News and Information
(972) 780-3663
David.Porter@unt.edu