Grade 8 students Samantha Martin and Jordyn Ohs take part in a robotics workshop held by the Geek Squad Academy at Dr. Roy Wilson Learning Academy on Friday.--NEWS PHOTO BRENDAN MILLER
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
In an effort to educate and encourage students to explore job opportunities available in STEM fields, the public school division has partnered with Best Buy’s Geek Squad Academy to host a workshop that teaches students basic programming skills with hands-on experience.
Ten members from Best Buy’s Geek Squad spent the morning with 30 Grade 7-9 students from Dr. Roy Wilson Learning Centre, teaching them how to program a robot with an iPad.
By teaching a small robot that resembles a circular robotic vacuum how to draw a simple picture, like a dog, students were given the opportunity to explore new technologies under the guidance of Geek Squad members.
“All of the kids have a little iRobot kind of robots and they’re learning how to program them using block programming on their iPads,” explains Matthew Maillet, store leader. “So how to do the sequencing, how to do the step by step commands. And they can do all sorts of things from drawing shapes to letters.”
Best Buy has been hosting its Geek Squad Academies in Canada for more than nine years, however Friday was the first time a workshop has been offered to students in Medicine Hat.
Along with robotics, Geek Squad Academies also offer full day camps that allow children to explore a variety of topics including circuit building, 3D design, digital music and computer building, with a goal of inspiring students to develop technology skills required for many STEM field jobs.
“Trying to find ways to bring fun to technology to make kids more excited about it,” says Maillet. “To make them more passionate about everything, and kind of jumpstart their thought process as technology plays more of a role in their lives.”
Grade 8 students Samantha Martin and Jordyn Ohs worked together to overcome challenges as they worked to teach their robot how to draw a dog on a large white surface with a marker.
“We have to give it different commands to do what we’d like it to do,” explains Ohs. “We can’t just say make a dog, we have to give it the different steps to do that.”
“It took a lot of trail and error,” adds Martin. “Because we had to change the angles each time to make the ears and stuff.”
Both students told the News the workshop has them more excited to explore the various opportunities available for females in STEM fields by allowing them to delve into their inner creativity and innovation.
“I’m having a lot of fun trying to make it perfect through trial and error and learning how to code things,” says Martin.
“I believe there will be a lot of great opportunities to do well by learning how to program,” says Ohs.
Officials with the public school board say they plan to host another workshop with the Geek Squad Academy later this year at Crescent Heights High School.
