JEROMESVILLE — Hillsdale Middle School summer students lined up on opposite sides of the school cafeteria. They were getting into position to have a battle, one they had been preparing for through a summer of math, reading and problem solving activities.
The battle would not be between the students but between robots, which the students programmed to turn and move in specific ways by writing code.
The science, technology, engineering and mathematics teacher, Jenny Stump, counted down. 3, 2, 1… and the robots took off.
While the actual battles — there ended up being multiple rounds — only lasted a few minutes each, weeks of preparation went into building the skills necessary to execute the activity.
The Hillsdale Middle School summer program, for grades six through nine, concluded Thursday after five weeks of learning. The work with robots, specifically bluetooth connected Finch Robot 2.0s, was just one of many assignments intended to build problem-solving skills, Stump said.
The robot battle had a “Monster Mash” theme. The students transformed the robots into monsters with legos, designed monster lairs with a vinyl printer, and 3D printed “artifacts,” or figurines the students tried to knock out of each other’s lairs with their robots during the battle.
“We focused a lot on the engineering design process,” Stump said. “So I gave them a project, they had to create it, and if it didn’t work, they had to go back and figure out what wasn’t right.”
Through this one activity, students learned hard skills (such as coding and 3D printing technology) but also soft skills (such as collaboration, creativity and how to accept and give feedback).
And, most importantly, the students had fun, Stump said.
Incoming sixth grader Landon Erandio, who is 11 but soon to be 12 years old, had never worked with code prior to this summer, he said. Now, Erandio wants to pursue coding and engineering opportunities in middle school.
He attended summer school for the full five weeks. However, some students attended a few weeks out of the full program, including incoming ninth grader Evelyn Woodlee, 14, and her sister Norah Woodlee, 11.
One of the Woodlee sisters’ favorite assignments was creating their own board games, from conceptualization to physical creation to real-time play.
Hillsdale used Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, part of the CARES act, to purchase the technology students used for the robot game creation and other activities throughout the summer, including a vinyl cutter, 3D printers and a garment printer.
Students used 3D printers and a vinyl cutter, for example, to build the game boards and pieces.
Colt McCoy, 12, created an oversized chess game, with game pieces modeled after characters in the movie Monster Hunter.
“I like Monster Hunter, and I like chess,” McCoy said, so he decided to combine his two interests.
Sondra Hayes, Hillsdale sixth grade English Language Arts teacher, said the students studied different games before creating their own. They also learned how to conceptualize a game by reading the book “Who was Milton Bradley?”
Bradley, an American business mogul and game pioneer and publisher, is credited by many with launching the board game industry. The students learned about his life and creation process, and then had the freedom to pursue their own game using what they learned.
Stump, the STEM teacher, said the program focused on building real world skills.
“We talked a lot about perseverance, what that means and how they show perseverance in their daily lives,” Stump said. “We’re hoping they can see whatever we’re doing in here they can apply to other parts of life.”
The summer school program also took students physically out into the real world to learn about entrepreneurship.
A field trip to downtown Ashland businesses and city hall was 14-year-old Jacey Slagle’s favorite part of summer school, she said.
“We tried to get them thinking, ‘Oh, I can do those things,’ ” Stump said.
