Photo By Sgt. 1st Class David Bruce | Sara Farcas releases an "Eggburt" car designed and constructed by students as an...... read more read more
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INDIANAPOLIS—The robot turned in right angles after impacting the wooden railings. Impact. Turn. Impact. Turn. Two wrongs don’t make a right—but three lefts will. The robot reached the end of the course after a fourth turn, and shut down according to its programming.
Welcome to Starbase summer camp, conducted at Stout Field in Indianapolis July 15-19. Starbase, a Department of Defense-funded STEM educational program, focuses on elementary students. The program offers 25 hours of STEM education during the school year to 5th graders. It segues into the summer camp program with children returning for multiple iterations. The students have spent four days increasing their knowledge of coding, robotics, computer-aided design and manufacturing, mathematics and physics.
Brooklyn Ryan, attending his fourth Starbase summer camp, said he has an interest in understanding how things work. “Science brings us along and tells us things we want to know,” he said. Ryan enjoys engineering and robotics, using tablets to program robots.
A veteran of four Starbase summer camps, Ryan offered it high praise and endorsements. “It is a very fun and educational program; I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in science or engineering areas. You meet a lot of great people and it is super fun,” he said.
Several of the children said they had been in the same group of peers for the past three summers so the camp takes on a social dimension. Seventh grader Corbin Carpenter said since he is home-schooled, the Starbase program is the closest thing he has to a conventional school experience. “I like the people here and everyone is nice and listens to each other.”
Seventh grader Grace Robertson also enjoyed programing robots and a stated that Starbase is a great place to learn. “We learn a lot of stuff with coding—we program robots and sphero balls (akin to a robotic gerbil ball). We learn about other planets and how robots will be used in their exploration.” She returned for her third camp because of the experiences and education. “It’s educational, and when you go back to school you have more stuff to share with your classmates.”
One of those classmates, Amelia Dubke who also attended her third camp this summer, said she enjoyed designing a robot head, 3D printing and the Eggburt project,. Eggburt being the hapless passenger in an experiment on inertia and momentum. “We had to protect an egg when it was going down a zip line in a car using materials brought from home and provided by Starbase.” According to Dubke, Eggburt didn’t fare well in his last trip. “There were cracks, but no goo.”
With education requirements for children increasing, programs such as Starbase take on additional importance to prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers.
| Date Taken: | 07.31.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 07.31.2019 13:14 |
| Story ID: | 333865 |
| Location: | INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 42 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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