Around 20 eighth grade Carbon County students took part in an engineering night recently, courtesy of the Carbon Career & Technical Institute in Jim Thorpe.

“They are doing to build, program, and compete in mobile robotics,” said Michael Garrant, head of the Engineering and Computer Information Technology Department at CCTI.

The first half of the two-hour event involved the students forming two-member teams, and first learning how to build the robots. Each team received a kit that had all the parts, a set of online instructions and the tools needed.

“This should give them a little taste of what the program I teach might be,” Garrant said. “Here, they will learn coding, mechanical assembly, following instructions online and teamwork.”

Garrant said he was interested to see how quickly the students absorbed the material.

The robots in this case were four-wheeled vehicles.

The first thing they learned was mechanical assembly, using the frame for the chassis, the wheels and the brain of the robot.

The students had to read the online instructions and follow them correctly.

“This also teaches them teamwork,” Garrant added.

Once assembled, they learned how to pair the brain of the robot with the handheld remote control.

The students learned about coding, which allowed the robot to follow a simple set of instructions that could be done without the remote, such as moving in a square, a circle or a triangle.

A playing field was set up in the CCTI cafeteria to test out the robots.

Several students, including Dani Hummel, a student from L.B. Morris Elementary School, Jim Thorpe, found out that the coding didn’t work as planned, as her robot began spinning in circles.

“Why is it doing that?” she asked.