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County 4-H members learn about robotics
Nevada Daily Mail
It may not be HAL 9000, but to the children gathered around the table at Next Level on the Square this past Tuesday, the robotics kits they were introduced to were good enough.
Vernon County 4-H, in cooperation with the Nevada Public Library, has brought a robotics building and programming course to local youth. Their first meeting was this past Tuesday evening, and judging by the smiles, it was a success.
Mother and team coach Kelly Ast said she volunteered to help "bring robotics to Vernon County" and that it "gives us another side of 4-H." Her husband, Jason, and her son were there with her.
4-H Youth Educator Amanda Davis heads the program, which introduces children from 6 to 14 to the basics of robotics and programing. Davis said there are 27 children signed up for this spring's program. They are divided into two divisions by age: 6 to 9, and 9 to 14. The Tuesday and Thursday programs are the same but have staggered meeting times to accommodate more schedules. Tuesday groups meet from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., and the Thursday group meets from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Each day's participants are further divided into small teams led by a parent volunteer. The program runs 10 weeks with the next session starting in August.
Using Mindstorm kits developed by Lego, the curriculum starts with simple robots capable of only a few functions and with each lesson becomes more capable and more difficult. The younger kids use the WeDo kits and the older groups use the EV3 kits. The EV3 kits are competition level and can compete in events like tractor pull, tug-o-war, and navigating a maze. The EV3 kits 4-H purchased are different than the normal consumer kit and costs approximately $500.
The Next Level is a "makerspace" according to Logan Jonker who manages it. It occupies the southeast corner of the Nevada Public Library building and was made possible with the help of a grant from the Missouri Library Association.
Parent and team leader Lewis Dunkeson, or as he likes to be called -- Coach Dunk, was attending with his son Luke. Dunkeson said his son loved Legos so when he learned of the 4-H program; he saw a great opportunity for father-son time.
The kits go together like normal Legos with a few exceptions. The Mindstorm kits add shapes that are not normally found in Lego kits in addition to the control unit, motors, and sensors. All of the robots are built around a central piece that houses the computer. Motors, sensors, and other Legos pieces are added to create a wide variety of projects. To program the robots, the children connect them to a tablet with software that allows them to drag and drop commands for the robot into a timeline. When they press Play, the robot follows the timeline. For example, to move the robot forward, they insert a command that orders the robot's wheels to turn one complete circle, moving the robot a couple inches forward. To go farther, the command can be repeated as many times as necessary.
Before the end of the evening, the children had the robots driving across the room to a wall, turning around, and coming back. The WeDo kits first project included making spinning ducks that quacked.
While it is not quite the Terminator movies yet, 4-H is offering local youth a head start on a possible career in an up-and-coming field. For more information on the Nevada Public Library's Next Level facility go to http://www.nevadapubliclibrary.com/. For more information on the robotics program, contact Amanda Davis at the MU Extension office in the courthouse or call 417-448-2560.