Near the end of the 2022 school year, sophomore Cohen
Frankenbery’s grandma casually mentioned that a
robotics camp was being hosted this summer in Pittsburg,
KS. Liking the sound of getting some hands-on coding
experience, Cohen immediately recruited his friend Ben
Turner to enter as a team of two. “He’d invited me to try
out some coding stuff with him before, so this seemed
fun,” Ben said of the very beginning.
At the time, the two Fredonia High School sophomores
didn’t know how big of an opportunity this summer camp
would turn out to be. But let’s back up to the spring, when
the idea of this camp was still in its infancy.
THE SETUP
Greenbush, an Education Service Center serving students
throughout Kansas, was busy planning out their summer
camp offerings. Camp and Enrichment Coordinator Emily
Joy Roth stated, “Greenbush Summer Camps have been
looking for organizations to partner with in order to
provide dynamic, hands-on learning opportunities for our
campers, so we reached out to Pitsco to brainstorm ways
in which we could partner together.” Pitsco Education,
provider of preK-12, hands-on STEM, coding, and robotics
solutions, welcomed Greenbush’s ideas with open arms
and was more than happy to help provide resources.
And so began the discussion of what the camp itself would
entail. “We like to provide a wide range of camp topics to
reach all interests that kids may have,” Roth said. “If that
topic develops future career skills with it and incorporates
local organizations, that is a bonus for us. As technology
continues to advance, we are seeing coding, robotics, and
engineering becoming more and more relevant in both our
educational system as well as careers.”
Pitsco had the perfect solution for Greenbush’s goal:
TETRIX® Virtual Robotics (VR). (See “More about TETRIX
VR” below.) This relatively new solution allows for a
completely flexible, blended digital/physical robotics
learning experience, whereby students can use a simulated
environment to code a virtual TETRIX robot and then turn
around and test their code on their robot in the real world.
Roth continued, “The TETRIX TaskBot seemed like a great
fit for high school students to dive into the skills needed to
work in a technology and engineering career field.”
As for location of this camp, Pitsco had a solution as well. The
Pitsco Idea Shop in downtown Pittsburg, a collaboration with
Pittsburg State University (PSU), is a space home to all sorts of
technology and makerspace equipment. Thus, it was a natural
fit to bring PSU into the mix as well. All in all, it was decided:
Pitsco would provide the TETRIX VR and robotics sets, the Idea
Shop had the staff to help coach the participating teams, and
Greenbush would facilitate getting the students there. PSU
would even provide the ultimate real-world relevance: $1,000
scholarships to each winning team member.
THE CAMP – MORE THAN JUST ROBOTS
So, on a June morning, the teams got a proper
introduction to TETRIX VR from the Idea Shop staff, gained
some coding career relevance from PSU, and spoke with
Pitsco’s R&D team as well as drove some of their robots
around. They also learned the rules for the rigorous
camp itself: they would have three weeks to complete all
15 lessons of TETRIX VR at home in which they learned
how to code in the Arduino C language, build their own
TaskBot at the Idea Shop, and then compete at the Idea
Shop’s final event, where they would have to combine all
their new knowledge to program a robot to complete a
mining-themed course. No easy feat at all.
Luckily, they did have some guidance along the way. Idea
Shop student teacher Bassam Alshammari was but one
resource available to the teams. Alshammari, a PSU student
working toward his master’s in electronics engineering, was
most excited for the hands-on aspect of the camp – the
fact that students got to wield real-world technical skills
by using robotics. Such skills, he said, will certainly help
students obtain a job, but “moreover, they are exposed
to soft skills during their camp, like teamwork and time
management. . . . Both technical skills and soft skills are
highly significant.” He pointed out that having one of these
can get you a job, but if you want to achieve success in that
job and gain a senior-level position, you need them both.
Finally, three weeks later at the culminating event, Cohen
and Ben programmed their robot all the way to success.
Up to that point, these high schoolers had gained all the
knowledge Alshammari spoke of and lots of experience, and
this day was about putting it all together. Pitsco Robotics
Application Specialist Tim Lankford was there as a resource
for Cohen and Ben to use as they directed a robot to
navigate a map and complete tasks – ultimately, they won
$1,000 scholarships apiece. Said Lankford, “It was really great
to work with them. They were quick to learn and never gave
up, as demanding and rigorous as the challenge was.”
WHAT’S NEXT?
“If other teams do a challenge like this, my advice is to
rely on your teammate for help,” said Cohen after the
culminating event. “It’s so much easier to keep going if
you have another perspective.”
Echoed Roth, “Personally, I hope that students had
a lot of fun working as a team to accomplish this
monumental task. I also hope they feel a sense of pride
and accomplishment in their work. Since a lot of what we
offer is career oriented, I hope this was an eye-opening
experience that helped students discover whether or not
this is a career they would want to pursue.”
From the sound of it, that was the case for Cohen and
Ben! They stated they learned a lot, had fun, and mostly
hope for more opportunities like this one in the area
because it was so relevant to what they want to do
in the future. Cohen wants to pursue a career in IT or
cybersecurity, and Ben is considering engineering. They
still have time to decide what fields to pursue, of course,
but this camp certainly gave them a head start in more
ways than one.
MORE ABOUT TETRIX VR
Stop-gap online educational materials were prevalent during the
pandemic, but many of these solutions fell far short of delivering the
content – and experiences – students needed to stay engaged and grow
their knowledge base.
For example, generic online robotics simulations seemed great, but by
themselves could go only so far in delivering the experience students needed
to fully understand robots’ applications in real life and the workplace.
That’s why Pitsco went all in with development of TETRIX Virtual
Robotics (VR) simulation software, powered by Robotify.
The recently released digital/physical solution offers the best of both
worlds – online and hands-on learning. Designed not as a quick fix
due to the pandemic but instead as a long-term solution, TETRIX VR
enables students to function like real-world engineers,
designing and coding digitally and then building actual
robots to carry out the code they create.
TETRIX VR QUICK FACTS
- 22.5 hours of content
- 15 activities
- 3 robot types covered: assistive, domestic, and safety and security robots
- 4 career clusters aligned: health science; information technology; law,
public safety, corrections, and security; STEM
- 100% web based
- 0 coding experience needed to get started
Learn more at Pitsco.com/TETRIX-Virtual-Robotics-Simulation-Software-Annual-License.