Many people believe that a portion of jobs that current students will accept in the next decade do not exist yet. With the rapid advance of technology in recent years, especially in artificial intelligence, some teachers are seeking innovative ways to prepare students for the future. "Even if a student wants to get into a trade like construction or plumbing, they'll be using computing," said Todd Brown, who teaches the robotics class at Solanco. "Having knowledge of basic computer science principles will give the kids great skills for any field."

On April 25, students in Solanco High School's robotics class traveled to Millersville University for the Sea Air and Land Challenge. The competition was created through a partnership between Penn State University and the United States Navy as a way to give students a hands-on education experience with engineering. Schools from eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware were provided with criteria for the challenge 10 weeks in advance so they could begin preparing for the competition.

Students have an option to participate in one of three divisions for the challenge: Sea, Land and Air. Teams in each division are tasked with using a combination of software and hardware skills to create bots that will navigate a scenario that emulates a real-life response from the United States military. Two teams from Solanco High School elected to participate in the Land division, designing bots to navigate a scenario where a natural disaster has occurred and debris is obstructing a roadway. The students needed to use their bots to deliver supplies through a simulated terrain amidst the aftermath of a hurricane or tornado. The two teams of Solanco students placed first and second in the Land division; Adam Noel and Adam Peffer acquired first place, and Santiago Yu Jiang, Curtis Sheets and Kohen Fowler placed second.

"It was a lot of fun being able to work outside of class," said Noel, a senior. "You learn that not everything is going to be perfect in the first try. There's a high chance that you have to go back and tweak the code and some other things." Noel plans to major in mechanical engineering at Penn State University next year and hopes to continue taking robotics classes.

"The competition was a good learning environment. We got to see other people's designs and are applying the same things that we do in class," said Fowler, a junior. "We're still working on solving a problem with technology." Fowler plans to study computer science after he graduates from high school.

At the beginning of the semester, Brown began teaching the students logical reasoning and computational thinking skills to prepare them for the process of designing a robot. In the robotics class, students work in the programming language C++ to give their robots commands and program functions. "It's about critical thinking, but the competition gives kids an opportunity to think on the fly and perform in a crisis situation," Brown said.