There are few dual-enrollment classes offered at HHS where you can learn how to program a robot to hum a rousing version of the theme from “The Pirates of the Caribbean.” However, that’s just what sophomore Ryan Showalter did in his D-E Robotics Class. Showalter and other students demoed robots that they’ve been working on since midway through the semester to various visitors during first block on Tues, April 28, including superintendent Scott Kizner.

“We started working on RedBoard Kits to get a basic idea of the programming language that we would use, and then we went on to make these,” Showalter said.

The initial specification for this project was only to make the robot move. However, Showalter and junior Brian Frank ended up taking their respective projects much further.

“At first it was just to make it move. Then [teacher Geoff Estes] sort of specified that he wanted it to move and when it touches the sensors to back up or turn,” Frank said.

Beyond that, many students added extras, such as buzzers that were programmed to play a song or LED lights.

In addition to playing the song from “The Pirates of the Caribbean”, Showalter’s robot displays the message “I’ve got a jar of dirt” (a quote from the movie) and has red, yellow, and green lights. Frank’s robot also plays a song and has LED lights.

“I think [my favorite part of the project is] finding a solution to a problem- whether it’s just a little error in the code or you actually have to change a huge part- just getting it to work is always fun,” Showalter said.

Both Showalter and Frank have previous experience with robotics, but the class has expanded their knowledge. Robotics and math teacher Geoff Estes allowed for flexibility with this particular project.

“Any bells and whistles, and sensors they put on it, it was up to them to figure out how to code it and make sure that it was integrated into the rest of the system, and they had to test whether it worked or not,” Estes said. “And every team went beyond. Some of them even did things beyond what I even knew.”

This project is the main project for the course, however the class will also be building robots that compete against each other in a ring.

Estes is eager to let people, such as Kizner, see what is going on in the robotics classroom.

“I want to let the greater Harrisonburg City Public Schools community know what great things are going on in this classroom,” Estes said. “and the wonderful work that our students are doing.”

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