Last month we hosted a Digi-Bridge Robotics Showcase at the Queen City Robotics Alliance to close out our five-week virtual summer robotics program to allow scholars to showcase what they had learned to an audience of peers and family members.
Scholars were recruited from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Title 1 middle schools and were taught the basics of LEGO Spike Prime robotics. Each student was loaned a LEGO Spike Prime robotics kit, as well as a laptop if needed to use at home. Apparo provided technology support.
The virtual robotics classes were taught by trained CMS teachers that are part of Digi-Bridge partner schools and they were assisted by high-school student mentors from Queen City Robotics Alliance.
Digi-Bridge launched its middle-school robotics program in 2019 thanks to support from Burroughs Wellcome Fund and its multi-year grant to bring First Lego League robotics programming to area Title 1 middle schools. Three Digi-Bridge teams participated in the 2020 exhibition at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Career and Technical Education Fair at the Charlotte Convention Center.
“We had a great competition in February 2020, right before the pandemic, so we had to switch everything to virtual very quickly,” Alyssa Sharpe, CEO of Digi-Bridge told FOX46 News.
During the event, scholars worked in groups to program the robots to complete a series of tasks including moving in a straight line, moving blocks, rolling over a bridge, and triggering a mechanism that makes a Lego swing-set move back and forth.
Thank you to our partners for helping us with our summer robotics program and showcase:
Photographs by Mandy French Photography
