SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A mob of children surrounded him when he unveiled the new gadgets, said Darryl Mitchener. The vice-principal and part-time tech coach at Range Lake North school said when he produced a pair of Lego Robots in the halls of the school, students wanted to know everything about them.

Darryl Mitchener, vice-principal and part-time tech coach at Range Lake North school, demonstrates a robot he's using to teach students about programming. - Evan Kiyoshi French/NNSL photo

"Just when I build these and started showing them how they worked I must have had about 20 kids around me asking questions and really excited," he said, while waiting to demonstrate the programmable machines for the Yellowknife Education District 1 board of trustees last week. "And one of the first questions was 'when will we get to use them?' They want to get working with them, and once I have a little bit more familiarity we'll get learning to program them."

He said he's had students play website-computer games which teach them the basics of building code.

They place bricks with directional commands in order to get a space ship to navigate through a maze, or to command a figure skater to perform tricks, he said. Some students take 10 or 15 bricks to build a functional code, he said.

"The ones who really understand it complete it in six," he said.

Mitchener said coding satisfies the curriculum by getting them working with new technology, and also challenges their math and science skills. He said his students took part in the hour of code - a global event held December 8 to December during computer science education week - which encouraged teachers to get students writing code for an hour.

Mitchener said the robots cost around $450 each, and Range Lake North school has five of them. He held up the two-wheeled gray object, which he said will give the students a hands-on perspective of the potential in computer programming.

"For the really advanced kids, they can kind of program it to do what they want it to do," he said. "One of the things I want to do is have robot battles where they'll have to push one robot outside of the ring."

He said the robots are designed for ages ten and older, and he expects to introduce them to Grade 5 students.

"The idea behind it all is pretty much whatever you imagine, you can do with it," he said.

After Mitchener's presentation John Stephenson, district chair, said he's amazed at what younger students are able to comprehend about computer science.

"I am fascinated by the things that people can create through technology," said Stephenson. "I have no sense at all of the potential of robotics in the school. I think for some kids that must really captivate them to be able to put something together. I think today kids are learning stuff at a younger and younger age. Technology for them, is routine."