Programming Partnership

High school students learn computer science basics at ECU

Greene Central High School students react as they watch a NAO robot raise its arms.

Greene Central High School senior Luis Herrera enjoys technology.

“I’m pretty fascinated with robots,” he said. “I think it’s cool writing code.”

Thanks to a partnership between the school and East Carolina University’s Department of Computer Science, Herrera and other students got to see their programming code come to life.

The students in Barbara Anderson’s computer science class have spent the semester working with computer science and software engineering students and faculty at ECU. The Greene Central students have been writing code to program ECU’s NAO robots.

The high school students have used a computer application to simulate their programming results. Last week, they visited ECU where they loaded their programs on three NAO robots to see the results in person.

For Herrera, he programmed a speech for the robot, had it walk and raise its arms, drawing plenty of smiles from his classmates.

“I had it moving its arms around, but I couldn’t really tell that in the simulation,” said Herrera, who has been accepted at ECU for the fall. “Here, I actually saw it do that. I thought it was going to fall over. I would have been a little more careful had I known that. But it’s really cool seeing it actually move in front of me.”

“That’s the beauty of robotics. You can write just a short code statement and see the robot move or react,” said Dr. Nic Herndon, associate professor and graduate program director in the Department of Computer Science.

Aleksei Vilkomir, teaching instructor and undergraduate program coordinator for software engineering at ECU, visited the high school in the small town of Snow Hill.

“I was surprised to see so many people interested in this,” he said. “The students are very excited. They’re not excited because they think the robots are toys. They’re excited because you can program it and make it do some things that they would like it to do. They want to make the robots dance.”

Anderson teaches computer science and graphic design at Greene Central. She said she appreciated the chance to partner with ECU so her students can get some hands-on experience and see the opportunities that exist in a computer science or technology field.

“It’s been really nice because we would never have this opportunity because this can be so cost prohibitive,” she said of the robots that cost more than $10,000 each. “It just gives the kids a different exploration that we can’t provide at the high school. It’s good getting to communicate with the students and the professors here at ECU. It’s been a good experience for the students.”

Staring with freshmen high school students this year, public school students will be required to take a one-credit high school computer science course to graduate. Vilkomir believes that may open the door to more partnerships like the one with Greene Central.

“I think it will be more and more important to use this kind of project with different high schools because it involves programming and also gives students an unusual experience that is also more engaging,” he said. “And engagement is very important with students.”

A NAO robot sits on the floor as part of its programming.

A NAO robot kicks a ball.