Bon Air students celebrate March Madness with coding robots

Second and third grade students at Bon Air Elementary School in Lower Burrell are celebrating March Madness this week — but with a ping-pong basketball, a plexiglass court, paper displays of defenders and Dash robots.

The “Dash-ketball” assignment was the brainchild of technology and engineering teacher Brooke Miller, getting students to put their geometry and physics skills to the test by coding the robot to maneuver around the mock basketball court and shoot a basket using a catapult.

“The goal is to make a basket,” Miller said, “but it’s also the basics of coding.”

Students connected their mobile Dash robot with a tablet, and set the coding to move the robot in certain directions and speeds. They had to move their robot around a “defender” on the court — paper displays of NBA and NCAA stars like Michael Jordan, Steph Curry, Shaquille O’Neal and Luca Doncic — and launch the ping-pong basketball into a mini-hoop at the end of the court.

“It’s always really fun to try to control a robot,” said Nolan Petras, 9. “Having it shoot a basketball is fun.”

The activity is a year’s worth of skills for Bon Air students. Miller taught them the basics of the Dash robot this fall, where students drove the robot and catapulted a ping-pong ball to hit a bull’s-eye. The lesson’s theme was based on a book they read in English class.

Then, in January, students coded their Dash robots to draw and create a snowflake on a piece of paper.

“We get to play with Dash and have fun,” said Serenity Samuels, 9.

Coding and debugging is a process, but “making a basket is definitely the icing on the cake,” Miller said. “This is a progression of learning to code.”

Massoud Hossaini | TribLive

Students at Bon Air Elementary School — Jax Kessler, in blue, and his classmate Noah Kuzmirek — react after their robot fails as they participate in the March Madness Dash-ketball activity on Monday.

To get their robot to move, students created a code on their tablet to move their robot in a certain direction, distance and speed. They could rotate their robot to certain angles to get around obstacles.

Engineering and technology have processes to follow that are similar to what students do in their other classes, such as following a sequence to solve a math problem, or strategies to read, Miller said.

“This is the same thing, they just don’t realize it,” Miller said. “They’re having fun with it.”

She said that, with advancements in technology and future careers, getting elementary-aged students interested and informed about engineering is important.

“It is truly not just high school-learned — it’s primary,” Miller said. “It guides interest for future professions.”