HURON – South Dakota’s 4-H robotics and engineering program is growing in popularity across the state as kids work together in their local chapters to make critical decisions to successfully meet challenges.
Their skills were on display in the Nordby Exhibit Hall Saturday at the South Dakota State Fair in the 2017 robotics challenge.
Chuck Martinell, a 4-H youth program advisor from Minnehaha County, said the kids learn a number of lifelong lessons from their robotics experience.
“You’ve got your science lessons here with the technology component,” he said.
“Everything we do has more robots in it,” Martinell said. “Our cars nowadays are more robotic than they’ve ever been before.”
But the kids also develop problem-solving skills, as well as coping and engineering skills. There’s also the social component with their fellow team members. Some are leaders, some are idea people and some are doers, but all must listen and work as one unit.
Robotics has been a part of 4-H in the state for the past eight years. When Martinell joined the organization five years ago, there were only a couple teams. That has grown to 20.
County robotics teams learn ahead of time what each of the challenges will be once they get to the State Fair.
Each team builds a robot and programs it to meet the tasks on each challenge board. They also build the challenge courses at home so they can test how their robot will do.

Martinell said the kids also pick out which parts of the challenges are the most important, using critical decision-making skills to figure out if a frustrating part is worth the points or if they should go after the easier tasks and get more points.
“So they really have to use a lot of those critical-thinking skills to really pick out what’s important in each challenge to succeed,” he said.
Teams typically practice much of the year, meeting two or three times a week to get ready for the fair.
But when they get to Huron, there are other obstacles to overcome.
“When they come here, we change things on the challenges so it’s not exactly the same, so they have to fix things now,” Martinell said.
“It’s not perfect any more, and they have to go into the programs and figure out what’s wrong, make those changes and sometimes they have to redesign the body of the robot,” he said.
In one mission, they must program their robot to move a ball to a particular area, follow a line from end to end, move blocks, stop for five seconds in a watering area, move cars and play a song in the finish area.
They are timed events, and teams only get one attempt to accomplish the mission.
 
Photo by Angelina Della Rocco of the Plainsman
One of the 4-H Robotics team competes Saturday in the Earl Nordby 4-H Exhibit Hall.