What do you remember about your middle school classes?
Do you remember programming robotic spheres so they follow pathways on their own?
Do you remember coding drones so they can fly over, under, and between obstacles to reach their target?
Thanks to a series of grants from the Foundation, years from now today’s middle schoolers will have experiences like that to look back on.
The Middle School Innovation Lab had a humble beginning in 205, when then Middle School Principal Peter Stuursma and EGRMS teachers Kevin Vance and Holly Lampen applied for a grant for $2,819.05 to get the project started.
Since then, thanks to additional grants from the Foundation, the Innovation Lab has offered extraordinary opportunities to hundreds of EGRMS students. Last fall, Vance, along with EGRMS teachers John MacKenzie and Isabella Schumann, requested $3,599 from the Foundation to purchase 12 programmable drones that support block-based (Blockly) and Python coding. The drones come equipped with advanced sensors, programmable LEDs, and modular parts and are ideal for teaching coding, robotics, and STEM principles in a classroom environment.
We were there the day 8th graders got to use the drones for the very first time. On a frigid morning, the class met in the Middle School Learning Commons overlooking the frozen expanse of Reeds Lake.
Less than half an hour after unboxing the drones, students had already programmed them to fly. Two days later, they were maneuvering the drones back and forth across the room, soaring over obstacles, swooping under tables, and returning to their bases.
Thank you, Foundation donors, for giving these students the opportunity to fly!
