Tanner went to a Robotics Camp which was organized by 4-H in Salt Lake and Utah Counties. It was four days, five hours a day, which was pretty long. They were programming the Lego Mindstorm NXT.
The first couple days were pretty good; he learned to make the robot follow a black line. He said it was long, but then he said it seemed like it was only 10 minutes long! The third day we forgot his meds, so it was not such a good day. He was teamed up with a brother and sister, and the third day the sister dropped out. Apparently she was the one keeping them on track, because it didn't go so well without her.
Today was the fourth and last day, and I got him started, then left for awhile. I went back about halfway through and he was not really doing much. The other kid was doing it all and they were both complaining about each other. So I stayed the rest of the time and by the end they had managed to work together on a project and had completed one of the missions. They each got a white ribbon on their certificates of participation!
Tanner says he would like this if it were shorter and a little more structured. We are thinking of starting a 4-H Robotics Club and inviting his friends to join it. We would need to work on those cooperative group projects a bit more!!
Here's Tanner and his partner. In the background is the table where they tried out their robots to see if they would complete the mission properly. They received points for each thing they were able to complete.
