Fueling Future Engineers at VEXplorers Robotics Camp
I meandered through the cafeteria of South Ripley Elementary School, scanning the mechanical beasts the prodigies had crafted. Rigid shells, snapping catapults, and binary brains overwhelmed the tables they worked on. Each automaton exemplified the scrupulous handiwork and ingenious decisions of every roboticist. As I continued my perusal of the meticulous students, I noticed one testing his team’s machine. I approached and inquired about its current state and its name. He looked up with a sly grin and whispered with excitement, “It’s beautiful. Everything is perfect on the Banana Man.' Stepping back, I saw a strange figure on its side—exactly as the name implied; half banana, half man. His team encircled the bot, each taking turns operating and controlling it. After each passed the remote, they smiled and echoed the initial excitement. Indeed, it was. It moved like no other machine—pirouetting around each turn without error, accelerating like a race car, and stopping like it hit a brick wall. Observing the beauty and magnificence of the Banana Man opened my eyes to the inventiveness and assiduousness of these students. They work in groups, blending each individual mind into one unique machine that reflects each participant’s personality.
The camp commenced with the students being sorted into self-named teams: The VEXplorers Superstars, The Hydro Computers, The Destroyers, The Bananas, The Peelys, The Renegade Runners, and The Fender Benders. Immediately following, the campers were introduced to this year’s VEX IQ, the nationwide organization leading elementary through high school robotics challenges, Challenge: Rapid Relay. In this challenge, students were tasked with designing, constructing, and programming a robot capable of shooting a ball through a goal. Young robotic engineers worked diligently throughout the first two days testing and tweaking their bots to score points in the most efficient way possible. On day three, the machines were put to the test through the camp’s apogee: the Rapid Relay Challenge, with team VEXplorers Superstars coming out on top.
In addition to participating in Rapid Relay, students engaged in complementary mini-games that honed skills such as robot control, reaction time, and design. The first of these activities was a driving skills mini-game where the roboticists were tasked with rapidly navigating their machine through an obstacle course. Students zipped through the straightaways and weaved around obstacles, ultimately comparing their times and measuring their improvement. The second mini-game was Sensor Says, a robotics twist on the famous Simon Says. In Sensor Says, students had to identify the various parts of an assembled robot if the sensor flashed. This honed their quick decision-making and pattern recognition. The last mini-game campers participated in was Zombie Tag. The robotics apprentices were placed into an open field in a free-for-all where they had to bump opposing teams' cars to turn them into zombies, thus honing their robot control and their strategic thinking.
VEXplorers Robotics Camp concluded with the ultimate mini-game: Battle Bots. Using the same robots employed for Rapid Relay, students added defense mechanisms, offensive traps, and armor, preparing them to enter a demolition derby-style arena. In a free-for-all setting, these recruits competed against each other for their machine to be the last one standing, creating a fun and different approach to robotics design.
“I liked Battle Bots the most because it was a fun game that made me think about robotics in a different way and without instructions,” said Nolan Wanstrath, an incoming 6th grader at St. Louis Catholic School. Engaging with robots in this manner encourages children to explore creativity and problem-solving skills independently, fostering a deeper understanding of engineering principles through hands-on experimentation.
In addition to STEM concepts, VEXplorers Robotics Camp allows students to sharpen their soft skills as well. Students are required to communicate with their teams and work in unison to achieve a common goal. This aspect of camp is highlighted by Laura Beck, a 7th-grade teacher at South Ripley Junior High School and Robotics Coach, “The most striking part of camp for me is how students from all over Southeastern Indiana are able to collaborate, despite not knowing each other. Teams have students from different schools, yet they approach each other and the problem at hand like close peers. Furthermore, this conjoining of strangers shows these students solve the same problem in vastly different ways. Whether these kids are athletes or not, they are all given the opportunity and an outlet to express their creativity and personality.” VEXplorers Robotics Camp, and the entirety of A Summer of STREAM programming, aim to bring together students from different schools and backgrounds and provide them with an opportunity to express themselves in productive, meaningful ways.
Genesis: Pathways to Success would like to thank the South Ripley Community School Corporation for being gracious hosts and allowing us to utilize their facility for camp to utilize their space. We would also like to thank our sponsors, the Indiana Department of Education and Honda, for the generous donation supporting the implementation and sustainability of VEXplorers Robotics Camp. We would also like to thank the volunteers from schools across the county, including Batesville, Jac-Cen-Del, Milan, South Ripley, and St. Louis. Thank you for passionately sharing your knowledge and expertise, and for encouraging education locally! Genesis looks forward to hosting VEXplorers Robotics Camp again in the summer of 2025.
