- Special Sections - Public Notices Robotics courses can teach
kids math and programming skills, instructor Jeff Rivera said,
but if that’s not enough, there’s always the draw of Legos.
“Everybody loves to play with Legos,” Rivera said. Elizabethtown
Community and Technical College has started its Kids’ College
program this summer, offering week-long classes to children
covering a variety of topics, from forensic science to video
game design. This week, the college is hosting an intermediate
robotics course, one of three robotics courses in the Kids’
College program. Rivera, an associate professor in the
electrical technology program, has taught the courses for
several years. The courses use Lego robotic kits. Students learn
to build robots and program them to perform tasks. The robots
can be programmed to retrieve and carry objects, or push and
pull them along a map filled with different pathways.
Programming involves a lot of math to determine distances for
the path the robot needs to travel, Rivera said. T