Robot institute to teach students

While most teens’ interactions with technology during summer vacation involve pressing the snooze button on their alarm clocks and Facebook stalking, those attending the fifth annual Ready, Set, Robots! workshop will embrace the latest innovative technologies.

Indiana University’s Pervasive Technology Institute will partner with IU GlobalNOC to offer a free workshop to local middle and high school students who wish to develop their robot-building hobby into skills in computer programming, logic and technical problem solving.

The program will offer two sessions: traditional for students with little prior experience and advanced for returning students or more developed, tech-savvy students.

Both programs will offer hands-on strategic experience with Lego Mindstorms series robots.

Kurt Seiffert and Kristy Kallback-Rose, managers of the Research Storage Systems for the UITS/PTI Research Technologies Division, developed the workshops, which will allow students to formulate computer codes that create problems the robots have to solve. The mission is similar to that of Mars Rover.

“We like to give the kids something close to a real world problem,” said Daphne Siefert-Herron, manager of strategic initiatives at PTI. “Something that might be seen in a scientific research or engineering environment.”

As students are introduced to programming simulations as an interactive activity, they can develop skills in a non-threatening setting. 

“A lot of the people that are now working in these professional careers started out the same way as these kids,” Siefert-Herron said. “The technology might have been a little different, but it starts from play.”

Another fun aspect of learning to work with robots is studying their interpretation of written commands, Siefert-Herron said. 

“Sometimes it surprises the kids how literal the robots are,” she said. “If you tell them to open their arms, they do, but they often keep opening them.”

Most kids involved in the workshop express interest in technological careers. However, the task of tactical troubleshooting can be applied to a variety of career paths. The robots are equipped to accomplish a single task in a number of ways, which gives students an opportunity to aim toward the most efficient solution, Siefert-Herron said.

Seifert-Herron said since IU is the national leader in research computing and high performance networking, the workshop is able to provide group leaders in technology professions from PTI and network engineers from GlobalNOC.

“The kids get to see that they are also approachable, real people who are doing high-tech work that’s cutting edge, fun and exciting — not in Silicon Valley but right here in Indiana,” she said.

PTI is offering an optional tour of the IU Data Center to the workshop participants. The tour will feature the IU supercomputers and the computing equipment it takes to support teaching, learning and research at IU. 

“We really like showing them it’s not magic,” Siefert-Herron said. “There’s a way it works, and the way it works can be learned.”