The Connection

Having fun, making friends and building robots? For some Fairfax County children, it’s all in a day’s camp.

From July 18-22 and July 25-29, participants in South Lakes High School’s VEX EDR Robotics 1.0 camp learn the basics of building and programming robots in preparation for an end-of-the-week competition. The campers are divided into teams, and must build a robot that can satisfy a set of criteria, such as picking up a ball, by the end of the camp week.

“Friday is [an] exciting day,” said Charles Britt, the camp director. “It’s a culmination of all the work that they put into building and designing their robots.”

According to Britt, the parents of the campers are invited to attend the competition and cheer on their campers’ teams. The team dynamic at robotics camp is a key aspect of the week, he says.

“You don’t see that often in a traditional classroom - everything is like, ‘individualized learning, individualized work,’” said Britt. “But here we try to mimic what students are gonna get when they get to college and get to the workplace, where it’s very important you learn how to work in teams and communicate and share responsibilities.”

Many of the campers recognize the importance of working in a team to accomplish common goals. Sarah Bokaee, who attends River Bend Middle School, says her favorite part of camp is “building and following directions and working as a team … to most likely win.”

Other campers enjoy the creativity that comes with designing their own creation.

“You can make it your own,” said Amit Erragantla, who attends Greenbriar West Elementary School. “You follow the instructions but then you can modify it.”

In addition to building the robot, instructors at the camp teach students a program called “RobotC,” used to code the robots and control them. Parv Ahuja is a programming assistant at the camp, and helps teach campers the basics of coding.

“We try to tell them that it’s a completely new language, at least for the ones that don’t know or haven’t worked with programming before,” said Ahuja. “And then the ones that have, we try to help them change from what they know to what we have to use to program these bots.”

Ahuja says one of his favorite parts of camp is seeing the children’s knowledge change and grow as they learn about robotics and coding.

The camp is currently in its third year, and many campers have attended before or have built robots at other camps. Many of the campers want to go into robotics in the future, something the instructors hope camp will prepare them for.

Pamela Person, the Lead Instructor at robotics camp, says she likes the fact that kids with all different experience levels are welcome.

“Whether they started it with no robotics experience at all, or if they actually had some robotics experience … they’re able to gain more knowledge and expand upon that,” said Person.