LEGO Robotics is off to a strong start at Hartsville Memorial Library. The library has had a LEGO Club for some time, giving kids a place to come together and build on each other’s creativity. The addition of a LEGO Robotics Club has taken that creativity a step further by combining hands-on building with coding.
The Robotics Club uses LEGO SPIKE kits, which allow kids to build their own robots and then program them using the SPIKE App. The app uses block-based coding, a great starting point for children who are new to programming. Instead of having to learn complicated programming syntax right away, kids can arrange blocks of code to tell their robots what to do while seeing the results of their work in the real world.
The first Robotics Club meeting started as a one-hour program, but it quickly became clear that the kids wanted more time. Because of their enthusiasm, the meetings were extended to an hour and a half. The club now meets once a month on a Saturday.
The first Robotics Club was made possible when Children’s Librarian Casey Ludwick borrowed a LEGO SPIKE kit through a South Carolina program that lends equipment to libraries. The first meeting was such a success that Casey approached the Friends of the Library about funding kits of our own. With the Friends’ support, the library can now offer Robotics Club more regularly.
The first meeting also received some extra help from robotics students from the South Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics. Their experience gave the kids an opportunity to learn from students who are already involved in robotics, and there are plans to have them return for future Robotics Club meetings. They have not been able to attend recently because they have been on summer vacation.
The Friends are grateful to Casey Ludwick for bringing the idea of Robotics Club to the library and for giving us the opportunity to support a program that makes STEM learning fun, creative, and hands-on. We look forward to seeing what awesome robotic creations the kids in our community build.