Math, science and robotics!

The students in Alison Craver's enrichment class at CMS are not only honing their math and science skills, they're building functional robots.

As a group, the students follow Power Point slides that demonstrate each step, students are crafting their robots. Once finished, the students will use computer software to program them to travel specific distances or make noises.

"My hope is that they'll move from making one that goes forward and backward to one that moves, sings and dances," Craver said.

Through the lesson, the students are learning electronics, problem solving, critical thinking, proportions, decimals, computer programming, ratios and graphing, Craver said, "and they don't even realize they're doing it."

Craver first introduced the robot project to students about five years ago when she learned it during a workshop at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Since then, she has used it to teach various classes.

Each robot has an RCX box in it that carries the necessary mechanism for the robot to communicate with the computer program.