Students at Miami Beach Nautilus Middle School are getting hands-on robotics experience in their new innovation center.
"It’s a lot of fun to be able to be part of the team [and] represent our school in these competitions and it’s nice to have this space to do everything we need to do for robotics," said eighth grader Noah Orlowsky.
The renovation of the center was part of a $2 million partnership between Miami-Dade Public Schools, the College Football Playoff Foundation and the 2021 College Football Playoff National Championship Game Host Committee.
The center allows several classes to come in at the same time to collaborate on stem projects.
"They have to create their own programs, they have to build it [and] they have to do everything from scratch. So literally that thing is in pieces. When they get it, they get to come to this innovation center put it together [and] work together. The collaboration that is involved is just off the chart, said science dept. Chairperson, Eric Marshall.
"We have four people in our group. We only need two people practicing driving at one time and then we have other people working on our robotics notebook or another person building more designs to help us improve our robot," said eighth grader Simon Paley.
Other sections in the center include coding, mind-crafting and 3-d printing.
"I think it’s essential moving forward especially for our young students. There are jobs there that haven’t even been created that they will be employed at. Artificial intelligence, bio-engineering careers," said principal Mary Murphy.
MDCPS is in the final phase of transforming 16 media centers and the goal is to continue to do this across the county.
