Mancos Middle School’s robotics enrichment class teaches students creative thinking and problem-solving. The quarter-long elective is available to sixth- through eighth-grade students but currently includes only eighth graders.
The class, taught by sixth-grade science and math teacher Brady Archer, focuses on engineering design principles and basic programming logic through hands-on robotic projects and challenges.
Each quarter, students tackle a unique challenge to test their creative and technical skills. This quarter’s project, dubbed the “Fast Bot,” tasks students with making “the fastest robot possible” while ensuring it is structurally sound and equipped with a sensor to start the robot.
Past challenges include the “Sumo Bot,” in which robots competed to push each other out of a circle, and the “Tennis Ball Challenge,” which required robots to retrieve a tennis ball. “Advanced Robotics” explored autonomous and remote-controlled robots with more complex programming.
The robotics program began in 2008, when a group of Mancos students taught by Archer competed in the Lego Robotics Challenge. The following year, students transitioned to Vex Robotics for a more versatile platform. To support his students’ learning, Archer attended specialized training at the National Robotics Engineering Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Soon after, Mancos Middle School invested in professional development and purchased robot parts to fully establish the program.
Eighth grader Riley Drye described the program as a “nice challenge to my brain after sitting for awhile, really fun because you get to build your robot and program it over and over. Once you get it right, it’s amazing.”
Fellow eighth grader Shannon Murphy said the students “make robots, use electricity and be creative.”
Archer emphasized the class’s hands-on, project-based structure, adding that it offers a break from traditional classroom work.
“It gives kids a chance to do hands-on activities,” Archer said. “Kids have to do paper stuff all day, this class is all-project and performance-based. Students might find challenges in other classes but come in here and thrive.”
