Schools

PDCMS Cafeteria To Transform Into Robotics Classroom

The class will take over the old cafeteria on the campus.

Students at will get a new robotics classroom, which will be refurbished with feedback from engineers and NASA scientists with as early as next year.

Faced with the option of tearing down the school’s old cafeteria, Principal Sallie Fraser decided to convert it into a robotics classroom for the growing program. A new cafeteria will be built elsewhere on campus.

“It’s unheard of throughout the country to have this kind of support especially at this level. They are cutting back everything,” said Reggie Clark, the robotics teacher at PDCMS.

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Construction is set to start as early as January, according to Clark, who has reached out to NASA scientists Dr. David Miller as well as the Botball Educational Robotics Program.

Clark hopes the classroom can be retrofitted to include “places to test robots, places to run robots, places to make prototypes.’’

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“The best way to make a robot is to build a prototype, leave it alone and come back tomorrow and pick up where you left off, not having to lock it up everyday,” he said. “It’s really difficult to do that.”

The funding for the project will come from Measure K funds.

The PDCMS robotics class has done well in regional and national tournaments, and a parent group is already fundraising for next year’s competition in Hawaii.

“I need a bigger room. We were talking about me taking the art room. And then this idea came up,’’ Clark said. “The principal was like, bingo, this is the solution.”


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