Tuesday, March 18, 2008

University of North Texas’ Robocamp, a summer camp for designing robots for middle school and high school students, to be held June and July

By Pegasus News wire

Photo not provided by the University of North Texas

DENTON — The University of North Texas is offering for the fourth summer in a row, robotic summer camps wherein middle school and high school students individually and team design robots. For details, please visit this website.

Previously, the camps have only been offered to young women, but financial support in the form of two new grants, an additional $30,000 from the Texas Workforce Commission and $15,000 from the RGK Foundation, have made it possible to include young men.

These grants are in addition to a $102,000 two-year grant from the Texas Workforce Commission and a $30,000 grant from the Motorola Foundation.

“This will be the largest summer camp program to date with approximately $125,00 to support programs for this summer, and about $50,000 already in the hamper for next summer,” said David Keathly, a lecturer in UNT’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Keathly is co-director of Robocamp along with Robert Akl, UNT assistant professor of computer science and engineering. Krishna Kavi, chair of UNT’s department of computer science and engineering is also a co-principal investigator on the Texas Workforce Commission grant.

Registration closes April 15. Programs will be five days long, with half of the time spent directly on robotics and the balance spent on engineering design, critical thinking and programming topics. Each camp will participate in individual or team design competition, with certificates and prizes awarded to the best designs. Registration is free and each camp is limited to 20 participants. Lunch is free.

The UNT College of Engineering will also host two three-day camps which will be eligible for continuing education units for 20 middle school and high school counselors. Additionally, an advanced robotics workshop will be held for young women who previously attended any of the Robocamps in 2005, 2006 or 2007 to run concurrently with the counselor camps.

At Discovery, UNT’s 285-acre research park at 3940 North Elm Street in Denton, Robocamp will be held June 9-13 (Monday-Friday); and the advanced workshop and Robocamp for counselors will be held July 14-16 (Monday-Wednesday). At UNT Dallas, 7300 Houston School Road (near the intersection of Camp Wisdom Road), Robocamp will be held June 23-27 (Monday-Friday) and the advanced workshop and Robocamp for counselors will be held July 21-23 (Monday-Wednesday).

For more information about the camps, contact David Keathly or Dr. Robert Akl with UNT’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering at (940) 565-2767.

Source: University of North Texas

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Comments

Pavel Lishin Verified

I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords.

6 months, 4 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Andrew Anonymous

The key to protecting ourselves from the robotic overloads is controlling their power. The Matrix revealed that having solar power is not an adequate control. I propose that we have them run on a household current and only equip them with a 6 foot power cord as suggested by Dwight on "The Office."

6 months, 4 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Scott Doyle Verified

6 foot power cord sounds like a handy tool to strangle us with, Andrew.

6 months, 4 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )