The robots are taking over — your kid's Sask. curriculum, that is
The next Bill Gates could be a kid who grew up in Saskatoon building robots molded to look like WALL-E.
But let me back up a bit.
The Saskatchewan government is going to roll out new elective high school courses this fall that will teach students how to code and bring robots to life.
"[This] will ensure classrooms are meeting the needs of 21st-century students," the government said of the pilot project.
To illustrate the concept, Kevin Chung, a program specialist at Innovation Saskatchewan, showed off a software-obeying robot made to look like the lovable star of the 2008 Pixar robot romance.
Made with Lego, by the way.
"It's been preloaded with some programs and it will run the programs that the students run into the robot," Chung explained during a demonstration at the University of Saskatchewan on Friday.
"Essentially, when this little piece is connected to a computer or iPad," he said, pointing to a small console where the robot's heart should be, "you put certain combinations of commands together.
"And you can essentially tell the robot to do simple directions like turn left, raise your arm, turn right, move forward and so on. The possibilities really are endless."
I know I would rather have done that than learn in shop in Grade 9.
The government says robotics courses that incorporate coding — parts of which will be available to students in grades 7 and 8 too — come at the request of people who work in the education and tech sectors.
Program them young
Aaron Genest, the customer experience director with Saskatoon startup company Mentor Graphics, says you need to plant the chip in kids early.
Genest says his growing company would rather not plunder the ranks of rival companies, preferring to develop local talent instead.
"We want to build, right here, the necessary resources to be able to do that," he said. "That starts, according to research, before Grade 6.
"So as long as we can get students interested in math and science and technology around that age, then we've got them and they'll come and become great technologists."