Learning Takes Flight for MIS and HPMS Robotics Students

Math and science learning doesn’t just happen on paper at McCulloch Intermediate School and Highland Park Middle School. 

It’s rolling off the page for fifth and sixth graders on the school’s robotics team, who are building their problem-solving and teamwork skills along with their automatons. Geometry has taken flight for seventh and eighth grade team members, who are programming and controlling new Robolink drones. 

“In my mind, math is a verb. It’s not just sitting in a room and doing problems. This is math in action. This is science in action,” said math teacher Tim Caffee, who co-sponsors the team with engineering teacher James Sciandra. “And the kids learn it so much better than they ever would just watching a lecture or doing some problems.” 

Caffee coaches the team’s fifth and sixth graders, who use Lego-like VEX IQ pieces to build their robots. The students put their creations to the test this fall in a classroom Tug-A-War competition.

Sixth-grader Barrett Brown and teammates Hayden Ernst and Nikko Numajiri won first place in the Tug-A-War by adding strength and weight to their robot.

Brown explained that he wanted to join the robotics team because he enjoys engineering. The skills he’s learning could also help him in a future career.

“There’s a lot of jobs that include intelligence and building,” he said.

Places on the MIS robotics team, Caffee said, have been in high demand. All 20 spots for fifth and sixth graders are full, and there is a waitlist of interested students. 

For the first time this year, seventh and eighth grade robotics team members are learning with aerial drones. The middle school robotics team began using drones in part to prepare students for success at the high school, Caffee and Sciandra explained.

“When they go to the high school, the goal is that they can use all of what they’ve used in fifth through eighth and apply that to the high school level, where they can build the drones, program them for the competition, and it encompasses everything they’ve learned” Sciandra said.

Seventh-and eighth-grade pilots have honed their skills by flying their drones around the edges of triangles, squares, circles, and octagons. In the future, the students will take on aerial obstacle courses that challenge them to fly in the shape of figure 8s and through gates, as well as to complete other tasks.

Along with how to maneuver the drones, Sciandra, who is a licensed pilot and certified flight instructor, has taught students the rules they need to know to fly drones safely outside. 

Sciandra said that success on the robotics team takes teamwork, communication, a strong work ethic, and persistence. 

“Understanding that it’s okay to fail, that’s really hard for them sometimes, I think, because of how our society right now is a lot of instant gratification, or just instant results,” he said.

The robotics program and its equipment has been funded by La Fiesta de las Seis Banderas, PC Tag, HP Arts, the PTA, and HPISD STEAM.