BY WENDI REARDON PRICE
Clarkston News Staff Writer
Kids were busy at work figuring what adjustments they had to do to their robots during RUSH Robotics Camp last week.
They learned about NXT robots, built a robot and then learned how to move it a little bit at a time.
“Then, we have them start working with the program and on the field,” said Sydney Havens, member of the Team RUSH Robotics team. “They can look at the challenges they want to do. Then, start working as a group to figure out what they want to do and how they are going to do it.”
After programming the robot, they put it onto the field, lined it up properly and let it go to see if the robot could do the challenge.
Havens added if the robot is off even by a little bit it will mess up the program and the robot won’t be able to completely do the challenge.
“Then, they make adjustments like if it need to move forward more to hit something,” she said.
The groups had a total of two minutes and 30 seconds on the last day to score as many points as possible like demolish a building for 85 points or put a yellow bin on a truck for 50 points in Trash Trek.
and the challenges were different between the beginner and advanced camps.
Havens said the difference between the two camps are the challenges and also the experience.
“The advanced camp they are in a group of people who have done it before and they can work on more challenges together,” she said. “It also gives them something different to work with. If they are in beginner one week, they can go to advanced the next week for a different game. There are some kids who have been doing this for years and they come back every year. There are some kids who have never done it before so it doesn’t make sense to have them in the same group.”
The camp gives the kids a taste of what they could do during the FIRST LEGO League.
On the last day of camp, the kids saw Team RUSH’s 2018 World Champion robot in action as the team demonstrated the game they had during their robotics season.
The camp was offered through Clarkston Community Education and Independence Township Parks, Recreation and Seniors. For more information and more camps, visit www.itpr.org.

  Camps, RUSH Robotics Camp