East Garner students build the next Transformer

Posted August 6, 2009 at 10:43 am and filed under Education, Faces and Places.

Staff Reports

R2-D2, C-3P0, Johnny 5, Optimus Prime — who is your favorite robot?

Jordan Thomas builds a robot during Lego MindStorms. BRIAN COLE, CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Jordan Thomas builds a robot during Lego MindStorms. BRIAN COLE, CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Twenty-one students at East Garner Magnet Middle School now have new favorites because they’ve built their own. During the week of July 27, these students attended Lego MindStorms, a robotics camp where they built and wrote software programs to operate their own robots. Science teachers Michael Dunbar and Brian Cole provided the oversight.

“We formed seven work-station teams,” Cole said. “Some kids are really into building the robots and some really into writing the software; when the kids found their strengths and weaknesses, we had managed to have each skill represented on each of our teams.”

Martin-Marietta, a construction materials supplier, sponsored and funded the camp, and Garner Educational Foundation provided support.

“Last year the focus of the science camp was water quality,” Cole said. “This year it is robots, and next year we want to do a forensics camp, if funding is available.”

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