DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — With the arrival of the summer and school being out, a lot of students are spending their days attending different summer camps, and Bethune-Cookman University has several to choose from, including a robotics one. 

What You Need To Know

  • This year Bethune-Cookman University is hosting several camps for local students,  just as the university is seeing record number of applications and enrollment for the fall 2024 semester

  • For the first time, the school is hosting a Robotics Academy Camp to increase minority representation in STEM majors and careers through focused mentoring and research opportunities
  • The robotics camp is funded thanks to a Minority Science Engineering Improvement Program grant from the Department of Education

This year Bethune-Cookman University is hosting several camps for local students, just as the university is seeing a record number of applications and enrollment for the fall 2024 semester. 

“Bethune-Cookman loves to host camps for our young people,” said Bethune-Cookman Vice President of Institutional Advancement Dr. Sherry Paramore. “One thing that it does is it provides exposure since most of our students are first generation college students. So, it allows them the opportunity to be on the college campus and learn new skills that’s going to help them through life.” 

For the first time, the school is hosting a Robotics Academy Camp to increase minority representation in STEM majors and careers through focused mentoring and research opportunities. 

“The objective is to recruit 15 to 20 high school students so we can let them experience what college life is like, and also expose them to science, engineering and mathematics, especially robotics, Ai and machine learning and data science topics,” said BCU associate professor of computer science and engineering Dr. Xiaohe Wu.

The robotics camp is funded thanks to a Minority Science Engineering Improvement Program grant from the Department of Education. Bethune-Cookman University received funding for three years.

The Robotics Academy took place over three weeks and will wrap up Friday.

Working in small teams, students designed, built and programed a robot. They also had an opportunity to see robotics equipment in action on a tour and learn from robotics and engineering research scientists.

“It’s really fun,” student Darius Brown said. “You get to learn a lot of stuff, like a lot of new stuff ... I definitely like this camp.” 

For Brown, having this opportunity meant learning new things.

“I learned like how to code, which is a little complicated at first, to be honest,” he said. “If I don’t pay attention in class, honestly — but when I start paying attention, I learned a lot of new stuff.”

As he worked on his robot’s final touches, he was preparing for the competition.

“You just have to have a fast robot and you have to make a code where it follows the track,” Brown said.

Brown said he was enjoying his time at Bethune-Cookman, and although he’s only in eighth grade, he said he’s already considering applying when it’s time to go to college. 

“I feel like that really helped me with my career, because if you don’t learn this stuff early, you can be stuck and not have that job or be working at like a normal job, were you don’t like it,” he said, adding that he already knows where he would like to work in the future. “NASA, definitely work for NASA.”