County hosts 4H STEM Expo
More than 120 students from six counties will be coming together in Russellville for the first 4H STEM Expo held in Franklin County March 8. The expo will begin at 9 a.m. in the A.W. Todd Centre downtown.
Franklin County 4H agent Janet Lovelady organized the event.
“I’m excited for it, and the kids are enjoying it,” Lovelady said.
She said the expo will consist of three different activities for the students to participate in. One is the robotics contest, which Lovelady said is modeled after the robotics competitions hosted by the University of Alabama and the University of North Alabama.
Her Franklin County 4H students have been practicing building and programming robots since Jan. 23. Their last practice was March 5.
Russellville Middle School sixth grader Soraya Fonseca is one student who will be participating in the expo. She said it took her and Abbie McFall three weeks to build their robot, which they named Robbie. The week before the expo, they successfully programmed the robot to run a course correctly.
“I like robotics and rocketry. I like that you can program it to run specifically how you want it to,” Fonseca said.
The robots are programmed and controlled through Lovelady’s computer.
At the expo, students in groups of 40 will be divided into teams of three or four, Lovelady explained. Teams will take turns testing out their robots and going back to the table to work on the programming.
At a computer programming station, students will use the Hour of Code website to participate.
The third activity involves adults as well as the students through virtual reality goggles. Through the Google Expedition app, adults will guide and narrate to students what they are supposed to do in a particular expedition through a tablet will be connected to the phone inside the virtual reality goggles.
“It’s really cool. I can’t wait to do it,” Lovelady said.
At each challenge mat groups will face a time limit of one hour and 15 minutes to complete their tasks.
Students from Marion, Franklin, Lauderdale, Colbert, Morgan and Winston counties will be participating.
