After taking Exploring Computer Science, Emma Meersman (Garfield ’11) spent part of the summer following her sophomore year at Stanford University where she learned how to build robots!  Read more about Stanford’s EPGY (Education Program for Gifted Youth) Summer Institutes and apply for this summer.

Building Robots

This summer I went to Stanford as a part of their EPGY Summer Institutes Program. I took part in their Engineering program, and I got to take a three week course on Mechatronics. The course covered electrical engineering and complex circuit constructing, an introduction to CSTAMP programming, and a general overview of the field of robotics. After two weeks, the course culminated in the construction of robots in groups of two or three people that had circuit board bases. The robots needed to be programmed to follow a curving line of black electrical tape against a field of white foam core. I had such a great time doing this program, and would never have been inspired to look in this field if it weren’t for Ms. Martin!

My professor for Mechatronics was a originally from Spokane and attended Seattle University. He then went to graduate school at Stanford. He works in the robotics department there, and is currently working on Stickybot 3, a gecko-like robot that can climb vertically on a glass surface. I got a chance to see Stickybot and the rest of his lab, it was very cool!

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