NATCHITOCHES, La. — Local students ages 11 to 14 discovered the worlds of robotics and engineering through hands-on activities during a recent free, one-day camp at Northwestern State University. Held on July 2, the event was designed to teach basic engineering concepts while fostering creativity, teamwork and problem-solving skills.
The Northwestern State University Department of Engineering Technology hosted the camp in the Friedman Student Union Ballroom, providing a full day of interactive demonstrations and robotics exercises led by university faculty and staff. The program received foundational support from the Natchitoches Parish A+ Coalition.
Dr. Shahriar Hossain, the head of the Department of Engineering Technology, emphasized that the camp connects middle and early high school students with engineering concepts through direct experience, all while building critical interpersonal skills.
"They will be working in groups, building team cohesiveness and collaboration. Those are the interpersonal skills they are building," Hossain said. "They're struggling to figure out which circuit or electric line goes where and how to put in the batteries. They're solving real practical issues."
Participants collaborated throughout the day to tackle unique engineering challenges, which included building a solar-powered tree house, assembling a Bluetooth-controlled robotic car and designing a confetti cannon. These tasks required the campers to use critical thinking to understand mechanisms like motors and elasticity.
Jacob Bynog of Natchitoches, an NSU engineering student who worked at the camp, noted that while the initial draw for children is simply that robots are cool, they leave the program with a practical understanding of how those mechanics operate in the real world.
"For kids, robots are cool, but they don't understand the mechanics behind them or the engineering behind them," Bynog said. "They're expecting to just have fun, but they're really going to understand when they go home, 'Hey, I learned how solar energy works.' Learning how the things around us in industry work, they can use that."
Patricia Vets, whose son Benjamin attended the camp, said such opportunities allow young people to explore their technical interests alongside peers who share the same enthusiasm.
"Opportunities like this are important for students because it gives them an opportunity to interact with other kids that have similar interests, to be able to communicate with them and start honing those skills early on," Vets said. "He's going into junior high, and he wants to participate in the robotics program there. His brother is a participant in that program also, so it sparked an interest in him, and this is a way to feed it."
The Department of Engineering Technology at Northwestern State University offers specialized academic programs to prepare students for technical careers in fields such as manufacturing, electronics, construction and automation through traditional coursework and hands-on laboratory work. More details can be found online at nsula.edu/engrtech.