by Erin Turner | Jul 17, 2015 | News Slider
Robots slid through the classrooms of James D. Hughes Center this week under the direction of young campers, ages 8-11, who carefully piloted the controllers. The youngsters were a part of Lipscomb’s Junior BisonBot Camp — now in its ninth year. The robot experience began as a small camp and has grown into a program that now includes several weeks of robotics camps for different age groups, sponsored by the Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering and Nissan. Robotics camp co-director Ginger Reasonover — whose son Bryan hatched the idea for the camp — has been watching young engineers build robots since the camp began in 2006. The camp started out as Bryan’s Eagle project for scouting. The year before Bryan had been a part of BEST Robotics, a middle and high school robotics competition. “He said ‘you know, it’d be really cool if kids knew a little bit about electronics and motors and gears before they came to BEST,’ so he put on — with the blessing and help of [Lipscomb’s] Engineering College — the first robot camp,” Reasonover said. The first year the camp was called BERP, standing for “Bryan’s Engineering Robotic Project.” “It was such a success and there was such a need that the university picked it up and then the year after that Nissan came along as a sponsor,” Reasonover said. And Reasonover isn’t the only person to continue with the camp as it has developed. Counselor David Jack started as a camper and now serves as a counselor. “The first year that I was here it was not nearly as elaborate, but we had a...
