LOWER MERION, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — The sky is the limit for a group of middle school students attending a summer STEM camp where they spent the week learning how to build, code and fly drones.
The camp’s goal is to expose young minds to the science, technology, engineering and math fields and the job opportunities that may be available.
About 25 teens participating in two programs were divided into teams inside a classroom at Lower Merion High School. They were using computer science skills to maneuver drones through hoops on an obstacle course.
Musa Konneh, 14 from Ardmore, helped to build and code his team’s flying robot.
“For the first four tries we hit the side, and then we fell off. We lost a wing. We lost a propeller,” Konneh recounted.
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“Of course, it is all easy to put back together, but most of the codes are already pre-programmed in the system. You just drag blocks, connect them and then you press run or play, and then it just takes off.”
“We are trying to encourage them and give them those opportunities,” said computer science teacher Chris Busza.
“‘You know a little bit about math. You know a little bit about science. This could be fun.’ That’s what we are trying to show them.”
Pennsylvania State Trooper Jim Trumpio stopped by with his drone and talked about how computer science is utilized in his work as a collision analysis and reconstruction specialist.
“In the grand scheme of things, what I learned in my lifetime going through college and everything like that, that math is pretty simple. It’s the concepts and theories behind it,” said Trumpio. “As long as you understand the concepts and theories behind it, It’s easy.”
He told the students that learning programming software helped him do a large amount of his job, and doing similar could help them be the future.
“If you guys are into drones, doing other stuff like that, I highly recommend that you continue that because there is a role for it,” Trumpio said.
Next week, the students learn pre-engineering concepts.