Andrew Hamilton School holds 1st ever LEGO League robotics competition
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Students from West Philadelphia took part in their school's first-ever robotics competition Wednesday. The event, done in partnership with the Philadelphia Robotics Coalition is part of the school's digital literacy curriculum.
It aims to expose students to robotics, coding, and teamwork. It may look like all fun and games but for these West Philadelphia whiz kids at the Andrew Hamilton School, they were focused and determined to win in the school's first-ever LEGO League robotics competition.
"We weren't playing around, we were working hard!" one student said.
Hamilton is the only school in the district with a K-8 robotics curriculum of robotics. And these clever coders have spent months tinkering and tweaking.
"It needed to have a sensor, it needed to be able to be functional for us to use it," another student said.
While at the same time learning the building blocks of project-based STEM learning.
Digital literacy teacher Mark Paikoff explains, "They needed to work on forming a team together that took some time. They needed to work on building their confidence and realizing there's a lot of trial and error involved, and the skill that is very critical is problem-solving. The jobs these students have don't exist yet so getting those skills and that skill set together that's really going to help them as they get older and move on and I can't wait to see where they go with this."
Reporter Vittoria Woodill: What did it take to win today?
"Teamwork and confidence," a student responded.
"When you believe in your children they will exceed anything you can hope and dream and today shows that," Principal Torrence Rothmiller said.