Guadalupe School District Hosts Their First Summer Robotics Camp
Jarrod Zinn
GUADALUPE, Calif. – Kids ages 8-13 have been working on robotics at a summer camp hosted by Guadalupe Union School District this week, preparing for a tournament Friday morning at McKenzie junior high.
“It takes patience and like, many, many tries to get it right,” says young Jacob Mejia, who captains a team dubbed ‘The Smurfs.’
An association between Delta Robotics and a new group called the Santa Maria Valley Robotics Association is providing college students majoring in the field as the camp’s coaches.
“The majority of us are alumni for Delta,” says Zoe Ward-Correa, one of the coaches. “So we go to Hancock, and then some of us are still in high school.”
As they get ready for Friday’s tournament, the kids learn how to prepare their robotic for a point-based game that analyzes how well their robot has been built.
“It teaches them to engineer actual things,” says Ward-Correa. “They’ll end up engineering in real life, but they don’t really know it’s that. They just think of it as a game.”
This summer camp is just the beginning, setting the stage for schools in Guadelupe to form their own robotics teams for competitions.
Another of the coaches expressed their excitement over the program. “I want to see them learn all this stuff so early and then put it into into high school too,” says Adrian Lopez. “I’m so excited for them and like, they don’t, they don’t even know about it.”
Guadalupe Union School District representatives say they’re thrilled to be hosting the camp, and they hope this year will be the first of many.
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