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Apps and robots help WB students develop skills

From left, Jocelyn Carte, Kyrah Garner and Katelyn Hill. (Submitted photo)

BELOIT–West Branch High School has numerous students involved in learning to program apps and robots in order to open new lines of communication and build programming skills.

Students in McKenzie Wallace’s AP Computer Science course were recently hard at work on theirCongressional Apps Challenge(CAC) submissions.

Students used a variety of tools to program apps that teach skills through games, inform the community about an issue, or help solve a community problem.

The CAC is a national challenge that encourages students to design and submit and original app on any topic or problem.

The CAC mission is to “inspire, include, and innovate efforts around STEM, coding, and computer science education.”

From left, Gage Firestone, Lydia Williams and Jocelyn Carte. (Submitted photo)

Last year, one student from WBHS won her district challenge and traveled to Washington D.C., where her app is currently on display in the U.S. Capitol Building.

Also at WBHS, the Coding Club has been creating and completing challenges using two types of robots – ZumiandSphero RVRs. Zumi is a miniature autonomous vehicle that helps teach students about artificial intelligence and coding related to driverless vehicle technology, while the Sphero RVR bots are going to be used to work on completing challenges the students create using sensor kits.

All AP Computer Science students at WBHS are learning group problem-solving skills by creating apps to solve real world problems, HTML code to create Web Pages and Javascript to create graphics and animations.

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