Today’s very first WMSI stem lab started off with a fire of excitement and enthusiasm which will be a trend in the coming months. Students showed up to Mrs. K’s classroom in Lancaster buzzing with excitement and wondering what cool projects they'd work on with WMSI today.

Our first challenge of the year was to build a robot that could make art. Concept-wise, we hoped to teach how gears work, basic programming, and good old creative problem solving. Our youth leaders, John and Ansen, passed out the LEGO pieces and the build was on as the temperature of the room slowly rose with the heat of 17 brains hard at work!

Once the robot was created (a gear attached to a motor that rotated some sweet octopus-like arms, which held a white sheet of paper), all we had to do was program it spin in different patterns. Looks of concentration turned to grins as markers met paper and art time began!

Students played around with motor speeds as well as loop and wait commands to help them create different pieces of art. Of course, at some point each student couldn’t resist cranking the motor up to 100% and letting the spin art zoom! (below)

Overall, it was a huge success with two thumbs up!