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By Katrina Margolis
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Imagining the activities that make second and third graders excited.
Mechanical engineering does not immediately jump to mind.
The Robotics Club at Westwood High School, however, has made this topic one to squeal about by utilizing the tantalizing appeals of Legos and computers.
Inside the Westwood Library, the third and final week of a round of courses led by seniors in the Westwood Robotics club was held. Two dozen children gathered around tables in groups, leaning over one another to be closer to the computer. Each table was accompanied by a Robotics member senior, smiling and leading the kids through the day’s activities. Surprisingly, this was a spontaneous endeavor by the club – hard to believe considering the number of participants and the palpable sense of enthusiasm throughout the room.
The president of the club, Jaime Vaccaro, explained just what it is they’re doing each week. “These things are called WeDos, they have eight or nine different things you can build with them. They have motors and stuff you can connect to the computer and you can program the motors and have them move. In addition to the physical aspect of mechanical engineering, you also have a trickle into the software.”
The team’s season begins in January, and they start preparing for a competition held by FIRST. One of the competition aspects is service, a component necessary to qualify for a certain number of awards. Currently all they know is that the theme is centered around Steam Punk. After the official theme is released, the team has six weeks of build time.
After their season is finished, they plan on returning to teaching engineering through Legos. “It’s something fun. The kids just fly through five things in a day. We’ve realized we need to push the programming aspect of it more. We built one thing and give them programming challenge – have it to go forward this many times, and back this many times, increase the speed, etc., so that’s the direction we’ve gone with it rather than just build, build, build,” Vaccaro said.
“It’s not something we’ve done a whole lot of in the past, and we thought this was a really good opportunity to make it happen,” said Vaccaro.
