Ci Campers Advanced to LEGO League World Championship!

Our two kids Aiden & Emma Hobson were first introduced to Mindstorm Legos at camp infinity a few years ago. My son especially became obsessed with them and robotics and decided he wanted to form his own lego league team. He and my daughter started a team this past season that consisted of mostly homeschool kids with no other options for a team. They were able to win the regional competition…and against all odds this little rag tag homeschool team then went on to win the Ky State Championship and were invited to compete in the Lego League World Championship ...

“Robots & God” Workshops Coming to Teach Them Diligently

Having taught computer science to college students for 30 years, I have a strong passion to take my knowledge and experience of this rapidly growing and strongly needed discipline to teach young people a proper view of technology. At Camp Infinity we call this our “Theology of Technology.” We just got back from wrapping up several days of workshops in Jacksonville, FL and wanted to share with you some of the details of how we use these workshops to challenge and inspire young people to love God and STEM. Start at the beginning. We always start with my talk on the “Theology of ...

Collaboration is not a 21st century skill, it is a 21st century essential

“Collaboration is not a 21st century skill, it is a 21st century essential.” I read that quote a while back and was intrigued. Collaboration, the action of working together to create or produce something (especially in an intellectual endeavor), is considered an essential skill in the modern job market. A great historic example of collaboration is the story of the Wright Brothers. These two brothers successfully invented heavier than air flight, one of the greatest "could never be done" problems of the 20th century. They used a collaboration technique to help conquer engineering barriers called “forging.” It’s sort of like ...

Robots & God Workshops

We have found one of the best ways to promote our unique STEM & apologetics camp is to go on the road with our technology (robots, computers, software) and theology (uniqueness of man, Creation, salvation, role of technology in a fallen world, God creation vs man made, humans are created in the image of God, machines are made by man, the creation mandate). Here's a summary of the things we cover in each of our Robots & God workshops.  Here is a 1-minute fast-paced video from one of our Robots & God workshops using Lego EV3 robots.   Theology of ...

May the Fourth Be with You

Now, we won’t be fighting droids with light sabers or protecting the galaxy from unbridled evil, but we will be programming robots and looking to see what God’s Word says about the idea of extraterrestrial life. Each of our campers who attend any of our summer camps (teen overnight, teen day, kids camp, and family camp) will get to travel off to far away galaxies and stars themselves through the immersive experience of the Stargazer’s Planetarium at the Creation Museum. And those who attend teen overnight or family camp will also get to use world-class telescopes to look at the ...

Build and Program Your Own Lego Robot @ Home

Lego just announced the upcoming release of Lego Boost, a kit of motors and programmable bricks that works with the colored bricks many children already own. The three special Boost bricks include “a tilt sensor, a color and distance sensor and a motor.” Also included in the kit are 843 Lego pieces and a special play mat for robotic creations to move around on. Kids, age seven and up, can build one of four robots included in the kit or dig into their Lego buckets and design their own motorized or motion-sensing cars, planes, cranes, or whatever else they can ...

A Homeschool Convention for Everyone in Your Family

Over the past two decades, the homeschool movement has gone from being a “counter-cultural” practice to the preferred way millions of families choose to educate their young people. More and more, it’s not just the select few Christians who have no other options, except to perhaps enroll their children in the local public school. Both believers and non-Christians alike, are holding to the belief that education begins in the home, and that home is their preferred choice in educating the next generation. As more and more people choose home education, more and more secular thought is being promoted to the ...

Robots & God -- What This Looks Like @ Ci

STEM is all about teamwork and problem solving. Bringing folks with different talents and personalities together to focus on solving problems. Nothing exposes kids to these aspects of STEM than building a robot. That's why one of the biggest activities in our summer camps is our Robots & God Adventure Workshop. Here are some pictures and a video to help tell the story. Here is a 1-minute fast-paced video from one of our Robots & God workshops using Lego EV3 robots.   Preparations -- before each workshop we first start with setting up the software tools the students will need. This involves ...

Ken Ham Visits a Ci Robots & God Workshop

At a recent Ci Mobile Robotics Camp we hosted at the Atlanta Teach Them Diligently Homeschool Convention we were joined by Answers in Genesis’ (AiG) president Ken Ham! For a live Facebook video, he interviewed me about our Ci robotics workshops and then chatted with some of the kids and got them to show off their creations. The kids were having a great time and were eager to show off what they had made. Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chwogggnZtY&feature=youtu.be Ci Mobile camps are a great way of introducing kids to the excitement of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Research ...

Introducing Kids to Robot Programming

You can encourage your young person in their interest in computer programming through robotics programming (also known as coding). This is a valuable skill that teaches problem solving. Young people are presented with a problem, something that needs to be automated or interface where information is needed, or perhaps apps that need to talk to one another. They have a computer that knows certain commands or instructions such as, in the case of robotics, move forward, turn left, turn right, or read sensor. They then create a sequence of instructions to solve the problem using the commands—this is the challenging ...

Programming Apps for Kids for THIS Decade

Let's start with a couple of definitions. Algorithmic work is routine. A process has been defined and the work simply involves following the well defined steps in this process. The worker is taught the process and expected to follow it without error. I am reminded of the work I did at Jeep Corporation while paying my way through college. Most of the jobs I did involved algorithmic work. One way to look at algorithmic work is that which can be automated by a computer or robot. There isn't much of a future for humans who do algorithmic work.  Heuristic work requires ...

Collaboration Through Robotics

We often hear about "21st century job skills" - things people should know in order to be best prepared for jobs today. This phrase recently caught my attention "Collaboration is not a 21st Century Skill, it is a 21st Century Essential."  Collaboration, what is it? the action of working together to produce or create something to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor Part of the idea is that "two heads are better than one." I enjoyed reading the book The Wright Way. It presented a great historic example of collaboration. The Wright Brothers, created one of the ...

What do robots have in common with dinosaurs?

You arrive for your very first visit at the acclaimed Creation Museum, ready to learn about dinosaurs and the Bible, but instead you are greeted in the main lobby by a pair of battling robots. What's going on here?? Having taught college computer science for the past 30 years, I saw a need to creatively engage precollege students to consider going into one of these disciplines. So about 12 years ago, I assembled a STEM Team at Bob Jones University. The team was designed to use Lego Mindstorm Robotics Kits and travel around to high schools showing young people that robotics ...