43
Dawdling with drones and playing with programming
CANFIELD
Forty Canfield Middle School students dawdled with drones and played with programming during a robotics camp Monday through Friday at Canfield High School.
Ohio State University physics student and program leader Nick Crescimanno, 20, led the 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. program, working with students with an interest in the STEM field.
The camp is split into three groups of fifth- through eighth-grade students – those in their first, second and third years of robotics camp, Crescimanno explained.
First-year students focus on the basics, learning programming and circuitry. Second-year students get to work in groups, building robots to compete against other robots. Third-year students dive deeper into an understanding of robotics more geared toward preparation for the high-school robotics team.
“It puts them ahead for it,” said Dave Wilkeson, volunteer and school board member. “They are able to take this all the way through 12th grade.”
Although Crescimanno said he is ecstatic about the growing interest in the camp, with the student expansion, he is finding the need for more volunteers.
“Our growth is really limited by the amount of mentors we have,” he said. “We need more parental involvement, and we need more mentors. That’s the only hindrance.”
Crescimanno said it’s difficult to recruit mentors because robotics camp is a long, unpaid week – all of the mentors are volunteers.
All of the money collected in $100 fees from each student goes into the materials for students’ robots.
“The only limiting factor of expanding the camp is just having more impassioned people who want to teach this stuff,” Crescimanno said.
He said mentors don’t necessarily need to have technical experience, although it would help, but merely a drive to learn “technical things.”
Like Crescimanno, volunteer Mario Ramunno, a Youngstown State University student, expressed a need for technology-inclined volunteers to help continue expanding the camp.
“It’s fun, and more [people] should come try it,” said Ramunno. “You get to learn a lot and have a good time.”
Mason Debrosse, 11, said robotics camp was a really fun experience for him.
“You get to learn about circuits and programming, and it’s cool because not a lot of people learn about it, and technology is growing,” he said.
Wesley Rich, 10, agreed and said he enjoyed building robots and personalizing a code to personalize the robot. To personalize his robot, he added a code for headlights.
“It’s all about seeing the kids super excited to have their robots working and seeing that it’s not necessarily just magic, but magic that they did and they can say, ‘I did this,’” Crescimanno said.
Steve Bennett, Canfield’s recently hired computer science teacher, said he was happy to be a part of robotics camp so early on.
“This is a great opportunity for hands-on activities, and the enjoyment of the students’ accomplishment really inspires them,” he said.