Robinson Helicopter donates to area middle schools
Scott Garmin arrives to work at Palos Verdes Intermediate on most mornings to the sight of a teacher’s dream. The kids are excited to flood into the classroom and get to work. That’s because they are building cool stuff like robots and airplanes. They’re learning how to represent their concepts in three-dimensional drawings, how to translate those ideas to a computer program and eventually build their projects in a fabrication lab much like the process of a typical engineer. “It’s unbelievable,” Garmin said. “A lot of kids are coming in an hour early to take this class just because they want to. Some are taking seven periods just so they can take this class.” The high schools have offered robotics classes for several years, but for two years the middle schools in Palos Verdes Peninsula School District have offered classes through a curriculum it labels STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math). In the seventh grade program students learn an introduction to robotics and computer design while in the eighth-grade program they study the science of flight and actually build things. The middle school program was made possible through a $60,000 grant from Honda Motor Company and the…
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