BisonBot campers get their gears turning this week at engineering program

Janel Shoun | 

Fifty youngsters from throughout Middle Tennessee are getting their gears turning this week at Lipscomb University’s second BisonBot Robotics Camp.

Last week, the fundamentals campers spent plenty of time soldering, drilling and fiddling with wires to build bright yellow robotic arms able to place small objects on a moving conveyor belt. The camp’s finale on Friday featured a competition between the various teams – with impressive names like Robot Rampage, the Pyros, or the Blue Bombers – to place the most colored blocks and rods on a moving conveyor belt.

Click here, scroll down to "More breakfast with Bulger" stories and select “Young scientists build working robots” to see television coverage of the BisonBot Robotics Camp.

During the rest of the week, campers visited the Nissan automotive plant in Smyrna, watched and played with various types of robots including BisonBot – a four-foot tall mechanical Bison that snorts smoke and launches T-shirts for hundreds of feet, and learned the fundamentals of engineering design.

The advanced campers are creating their own custom-made robots this week, and on Friday the robots will duel in Ward Hall at 12:15 p.m. to pop balloons attached to each robot, a la TV’s Robot Wars.

“There are a lot of kids out there who are excited about mechanics and robots because they see technology all around them with their computers and telephones, and in their comic books and favorite TV shows,” said Greg Nordstrom, Lipscomb associate professor of engineering, who has coordinated the camp. “Robotics provides a wonderful opportunity to take something kids are excited about and use it to teach them about math and science, engineering principles and problem-solving.”

Lipscomb held its first robotics camp last year and had such a positive response that the Raymond B. Jones School of Engineering decided to expand to two weeks and create an advanced camp this year.

The robotics camp was inspired by Lipscomb’s involvement in the BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology) robotics competition, held at Allen Arena in October each year. As host of Music City BEST, Lipscomb’s engineering school helps guide middle- and high-schoolers from across the state through the process of building a robot and operating it to compete against other robots statewide.