All this week I’ve taken my daughter to Robot camp. She loves science, loves Legos, so we thought it might be an interesting week for her to build her own robots.

Before I signed her up for a week, I explained what it was about and asked if she thought it might be something fun, she said YES, sign me up, so as any good Mom, I made it happen!

The jitters of 1st day brought up some questions about girl/boy ratios:

C: “How many girls do you think there will be at this camp?”

Me: I’m not sure, the pictures from the camp brochure showed a few girls in them, but yeah mostly boys.

C: Yeah I figure there might be just a few because at the other camp boys are the only ones that play with Legos, even though they are really cool…

And sure enough, we arrived on the 1st day and she got the 1st taste of what it will be like if she becomes an engineer… Room with 8 boys, and she’s the only girl. However to my proud Mama moment, she didn’t look the least bit discouraged. Also Coach Brawn, the engineer teaching the class, seemed very friendly and welcoming.

As I left all I could think about was that I hoped he was able to make robotics and engineering sound very cool/interesting/fun even though she’s a girl so she would have an amazing time and still have engineering as part of one of those things she might like to do when she grows up.

I poked my head in the room and took an infraganti pic as my daughter is racing her robot car she had built against 3 other boys.

When she realized I was there she jumped up to show me her robot up close, the book and all the steps she went through to build it. With so much excitement in her tone, I knew Coach Brawn had done his job well. So well that none of the kids wanted to leave!

On Day 2, I found her playing “tag your IT” with their robots.

I noticed that today she incorporated a bit more pink into her pieces. She showed me how they programmed their robot to follow black lines that were painted on a piece of paper, so the robot would follow the path. She thought that was really neat. On the side a picture with her “Liner robot”.

Day 3 – Helicopter or Hovercraft day

Another exciting day, the kids in general are doing better as they are a bit more used to the pieces and how to assemble so things are quicker and smoother which is good, more time for play with the robots.

On this day they were given the choice of building either a helicopter or a hovercraft. She chose a helicopter! I was on the late side of picking her up, but as soon as I walked through the door an overly excited daughter said “Mami, mira, mira mira mira!!!!”. She showed me how the helicopter could move forward, backward, rotate, basically everything but fly (which would have been cool).

Day 4 is “Soccer Robot day”

When I came to pick up lil c today I found closed doors and I could hear a lot of cheering and yelling and laughter… I guess they were in the middle of a Soccer match. Sure enough as I peaked in they were all gathered around trying to score the last goal that would determine the winner of that match. Game over and Team 1 wins! The girls jump up and down in excitement and hugs 🙂

Here they are proudly showing their soccer robots

Day 5 – Last day “own creation day”

They played more soccer in the morning and then it was time to make their own creation robot to proudly present it to the family in the afternoon.

She made a robot that had a sword on it, to my surprise I asked why a sword? “Because it’s the sword of Thundercats mommy! See???”
Guess I wasn’t expecting that one! So I looked over at DH and he just laughed… They had been watching the 80s cartoon all that week apparently…

Time was up and we had to take everything a part and take inventory. We put it all in a box and took our kit home with an overly excited lil c who wants to come back next year!

Robot camp was definitely a great experience, it’s a great way for kids to learn about science and programming through robotics.

I think that you probably get more out of the class if you were 9 and above just because an older kid would find it easier to assemble parts and would be better ready for programming and doing more complex robots.

My kiddo however, would tell you she absolutely loved it and wants to do it again.

 We highly recommended if your child is into robots, Legos, building… Coach Brawn was an excellent instructor, patient with kids, had a great rapport, was friendly and you could tell the kids really enjoyed his camp.

They have summer camps, after-school programs and other ideas, here is the website if you want to check it out: http://www.robots-4-u.com/index.html