A group of the campers learning what is under the hood of one of the electric vehicles yesterday from David Allsopp, a Transport supervisor at the BL&P as Leo-Neil Perry and Wayne Blunt, a System engineer at BL&P look on.
More females, particularly the younger females, are taking more of an interest in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math) fields.
This comment came from Leo-Neil Perry, Lead Facilitator for Level 2 campers at the Junior Robotics Camp yesterday morning during a demonstration that took place at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. Perry told The Barbados Advocate that they do not usually have many females involved in the camp, but the numbers appear to be growing with each passing year.
“Certainly more females have been encouraged to take on the technology field in terms of programming, which is a very important part of robotics. So in terms of encouraging and trying to get more involved in that aspect of
robotics, then we see a little more females coming in,” he said.
Thirteen-year-old Yaa Marshall expressed that so far the experience at camp had been an enjoyable one, noting that she was able to learn a variety of different things. “I’ve always been interested in robots and technology; then when I got to high school, I had an interest in being a robotic engineer and going further in that occupation; so hopefully this will help me to become a robotic engineer in the future,” she said.
Eleven-year-old Isabel Humphrey noted that even though building the robots was stressful and hard work, it was the best thing about camp. She noted that even though she did not know what field of work she wanted to get into when she got older, she was glad she had the opportunity to learn about robotics and technology at the camp.
Perry went on to say that each camper was currently looking forward to the showcase set to take place next week Thursday.
“We have a showcase where the campers will showcase a number of robots that they have been working on, by getting them to do a number of different tasks which they have been working on this week. It will be a showcase where persons in the community can actually come in and view what robotics is all about,” he said.