Naperville third-graders 'amazed' by new robotics club
Students as young as 8 and 9 at two Naperville elementary schools are finding they don't have to be in high school to build a robot.
Piece by piece, students at Cowlishaw and Kendall elementaries are assembling "clawbots" during after school meetings of new robotics clubs launched this October.
"I thought it was fun because you could built robots and I'd never built a robot in my whole life," said 8-year-old Rachel Adu, a Cowlishaw robotics club member. "The first time I tried I was so amazed."
Indian Prairie Unit District 204 launched robotics clubs at two elementary and two middle schools this year with support from the Indian Prairie Educational Foundation, which gave $10,000 for the elementary programs as part of $44,000 for robotics districtwide.
Melissa Eaton, an English Language Learners teacher at Cowlishaw Elementary, started a club with third-graders and accepted all 28 students who applied. There was so much interest - among girls, boys, students who are learning English, even kids with special needs - that she didn't need to promote the club. Eaton said she was glad the call for young robot-builders got a diverse response.
"I didn't want this just to be the kids whose dads are engineers," she said.
Club members are using kits from a company called VEX IQ to build their "clawbots," which are small, plastic, battery-operated bots with wheels that include a movable claw to pick things up.
First, they study a poster with images of each part, learning the functions of pulleys, levers and gears.
"You can't build a complex machine until you understand how simple machines work," Eaton said. "They have to be able to explain how (the parts) work before I let them move on."
Moving on means using pieces from the kit to assemble the clawbot. It also can mean backtracking. But that's the scientific method, Eaton said, hypothesize, experiment, assess, improve - even if it means starting over.
"I think that's been the most frustrating thing for the students is learning that perseverance," Eaton said.
Several parents and volunteers from nearby high schools give their Tuesday afternoons to help with some of the trial and error.
"I used to do stuff like this when I was smaller, so it's natural to me," said Willie Barr II of Aurora, whose 8-year-old son Willie III is in the Cowlishaw club. "I don't do it for them, but I do show them to look at the small details."
Eight groups within the Cowlishaw club are aiming to have a robot built before a Jan. 17 VEX IQ tournament at Neuqua Valley High School, in which they will compete in a new elementary division. There, they can watch their high school counterparts and see how their construction and programming skills can improve if they stick with it, said Kent Duncan, chairman of the Indian Prairie Educational Foundation's board.
"These kids are here because they have a passion," Duncan said about the youngest robot-builders. "It's a very innovative idea."