About a dozen kids turned out for a day of fun at the Sherburne County Fairgrounds Thursday.

 

It was the second June Day Camp of the week involving hands-on science projects. Earlier in the week, kids K-2 did projects like making ice cream and experimenting with liquids, solids and gases.

 

Thursday, it was kids third grade and up who had a chance to work on projects during Robots and Rollercoasters Day Camp.

 

Sherburne County 4-H Program Coordinator Kristen Gustafson said some of the projects were similar to what the younger group had done, like making oobleck, a substance that sometimes resembles Playdough, cake frosting or pudding. It’s made with water, cornstarch and food coloring. The kids mixed their own and saw how the consistency changed over time. 

 

Earlier in the day Thursday, the kids built their own robots and spent time learning how to program the robots’ movements on a laptop computer.

 

“We started with really simple moves so they could get used to writing code,” said Gustafson. “They had to drive it forward two feet or they had to drive it in a circle - things like that.”

 

Next came the task of programming the robots to navigate mazes. The first was a wide box maze where the kids had to stay inside without hitting the lines.

 

“It’s getting them used to measuring out how far the robot is moving and measuring turns,”  said Gustafson. 

 

Another maze was much narrower, and the kids had to program their robots to touch the guidelines the entire time. 

 

“So instead of having a foot-wide margin of error they only had six inches,” said Gustafson. “Everything is more precise.”

 

Then the kids were given the chance to be creative by programming their robots any way they wanted.

 

They also experimented with density by putting different liquids in a tube and observing how they stacked on top of each other depending on their density.

 

The kids also made marble rollercoasters from pipe insulation, similar to what the younger group had done earlier in the week.

 

But one activity stood out for the older kids - flying drones.

 

After summer intern Blake Bromberg demonstrated the drone control panel and showed them how to start, turn and land the drone, each kid had a chance to give it a try.

 

At first, the wind outside made if difficult to control the drone. But after the activity was move inside one of the fairgrounds buildings, the kids could guide the drone through a maze.    

 

It was a fun day for everyone, and it was the last June day camp of the season.

 

Next on the list for fun science is the Sherburne County Fair (July 20-23), where kids will be testing the strength of bridges they built and launching rockets.