CLASSROOM SPOTLIGHT: Brookside Middle School

Students in Susan Roberts’ class at Brookside Middle School built Soda Can Robugs — bug robots — Friday, March 18, thanks to a grant from Sun Hydraulics. The Sarasota Observer checked in during first period to see how they were doing.

Darby Adams
Is this your first robot?
I’ve never built anything in my life, but this is easy and fun.

What’s been the biggest challenge so far?
Connecting the wires, but we only messed up on the wings. We had them backward.

Yakira Padilla
What’s the best part about this lab?
I get to build stuff again. I miss doing that — especially helping my parents build car motors. (This robot) is basically a lot of work on knowing what you’re dealing with. It helps to read the instructions and know what you need to know to finish.

Did you name your Robug?
Its name is Buggsy.

Kassie Fountain
What surprised you most?
That it’s kind of hard, and the screws were complicated because they are so small. But – I’m surprised it actually works in the end.

Do you want to build another robot?
A human robot, or a dog or cat.

Brianne Goff
Was this a challenging lab?
Robotics is interesting because it can be so difficult, and if you make mistakes, you have to start all over again. At one point, he (classmate Rodney Lucky) thought it wasn’t going to work.

What made him think it wouldn’t work?
He flipped a switch and nothing happened.

What was wrong?
We didn’t have the batteries in.

Contact Loren Mayo at [email protected].