ERIE, Pa. — This summer, Shane Hoover-Buzzard, 10, sent a robot named Edison — about the size of a deck of cards on wheels — barreling toward a second, identical robot. The two robots engaged in a sumo wrestling match of sorts while Hoover-Buzzard cheered them on.
Across the room, teacher Paul Semrau helped two more students program a different robot.
“I think of my job here as a facilitator,” he said. “These kids are in control of their learning.”
Lots of learning happened in Semrau’s first-floor classroom in the Kochel Center this summer. He led several Penn State Behrend College for Kids courses, in which students ages 8 to 14 designed and built robots and experimented with basic programming.
“College for Kids classes like robotics provide an opportunity for young students to do some early career exploration outside a school environment,” said Sonya Smith, assistant director of Youth Education Outreach at the college. “It’s providing enrichment opportunities and hands-on learning that many kids don’t get in school.”
The classes are always full, and often include students — like Hoover-Buzzard — who have taken the course before.
“I think the most was a kid who took it four times and then aged out,” Semrau said.
Semrau, a seventh-grade science teacher in the Wattsburg Area School District, has been leading College for Kids robotics courses for nearly a decade. When he started the program, students worked from two boxes of robot parts and a few old laptops that Semrau lugged to campus each summer.
Today, kids in the robotics classes have access to equipment and computer software worth thousands of dollars.