On Nov. 22, Spring City Elementary, grades 1-5 got to do hands-on robot fun. North Sanpete has received a grant to develop computer science throughout the district. Each school has been given robots that can be coded through apps on an iPad.

The robots used were: indi cars, Blue-bots, and Dashes. The overall object of this activity is to teach creative thinking and develop problem-solving skills while fostering a love computer science.

The activity with the Dash robots, student can watch their virtual coding turn into tangible learning experiences. Dash has multiple sensors, it can interact with and respond to its surroundings.

The indi robots use onboard color sensing that recognizes color tiles that give it instructions. Students were told that red is stop, green go, and yellow is slow. They had to figure out what the other colors’ directions were. They then laid out the pattern for their cars to follow.

The Blue-bots, are little vehicles that have directional buttons on their tops that students can push. They can record their steps. They had big mats with roads and other things students could program their bots to follow.

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