Lower School Students Demonstrate Robotics Skills

Ranney fourth- and fifth-graders have the option of taking a Robotics Elective course. Today, these robotics students showed off their building, programming and driving skills with a Robotics Demonstration Assembly for the entire Lower School. The students proudly walked into the assembly hall to the musical theme of “Star Wars” while carrying their robots. They explained what they’ve learned in Robotics class so far this year and how they build the robots. Students then demonstrated what a competition is like using one of Ranney’s robotics fields; the teams showed how they work together to pick up colored VEX IQ cubes and drop them into color-coded bins to earn points. Students also exhibited how fast their robots can go—which had the whole crowd on its feet, cheering on the wheeled robots.

A few members of the Middle and Upper School Robotics Teams also stopped by the assembly to share what some of the larger robots look like and what they can do in a competition. Ranney’s Middle and Upper School Robotics Teams, under the direction of Advisor Chiara Shah, have earned 22 awards during the 2014-15 robotics season to date. In less than one month, 6 of these teams will head to the national competition and two will head to the world championship!

Science Teacher Judy Salisbury and Technology Teacher Maureen Wood run the Lower School Robotics program and led today’s assembly. A Lower-Middle School in-house robotics competition is also being held this week as part of the March 17-19 Ranney Engineering Expo. Collaborative teams made up of students from both divisions are participating in 38 matches, scored and judged by their Upper School robotics student peers.