Bots in action: First Mount Si robotics class awes students with small, smart machines

Sherman Hutcherson watches, fascinated, as a small device rolls around a tabletop in the Wildcat Court, but always stops before rolling off the edge. He is one of hundreds of students who came to see Kyle Warren’s students demonstrate what they’ve learned in Mount Si High School’s first robotics class.

The class, open to sophomores and up, just started this year, and Warren hopes that the interest expressed at a Tuesday, Nov. 22, demonstration will lead to a robotics club and eventually more classes.

At each of four stations, students are watching the demonstration and asking questions, but the robot that stops before it falls is by far the most interactive. People wave their hands at it, let it roll over their fingers, and attempt other tests for the machine, but it ignores all obstacles but the table edge.

One of the creators, Mitchell McGhan, explains that the robot uses a light beam to measure the distance to the surface in front of it, before proceeding. It required some complex code, but he said it only took his team a couple of class periods to create and program the robot.

“I don’t get math, but I get this,” he said.