The Nanan Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Academy held its inaugural showcase at the Grant Hall Hotel on Nov. 6, with students demonstrating computer games, custom-programmed robotics, and other programming skills they’ve learned.
James, 13, demonstrated his project combining robotics with coding. He integrated a robotic arm with a control board and a camera to differentiate between a red ball and a yellow ball. Once the red ball is identified, the arm grabs it and throws it away.
“See, what I did in the code here, this is a function, and everything underneath this is basically the code for it,” James explained. The lines of code, with delays between actions, instructions for what angle the robot arm should bend at, and what colour to respond to, were all worked out by him, essentially on his own.
“Here’s the angle that it bends at, I had a whiteboard where I tested out the standard angles it should bend to. These are the base, so this first servo down here is for turning. It resets to 140 degrees, then this second one puts the arm at a 90-degree angle for picking up the ball.”
Gerry Turcotte, a technology coach for the Holy Trinity Catholic School Division, volunteers at the Nanan STEM Academy. He’s worked with founder/director Shaun Nanan for years, teaming up to prepare kids for a digitally literate future.
“We help them learn step-by-step thinking,” Turcotte said. “And if they make a mistake, we help them learn, ‘where’s your mistake?’ and ‘how do you figure out where you made a mistake?’ So, we’re teaching kids how to persevere, right? You’re teaching them to ask when they need something, to express themselves appropriately.
“They’re learning communication skills, logical thinking skills, math, spatial directions. And they’re so engaged.”
Shaun Nanan is the program head of Computer Engineering Technology at Sask Polytech’s Moose Jaw campus. He is passionate about technology education and hopes to be part of a change in how students in Kindergarten through Grade 12 learn computational thinking.
“We have 13- to 14-year-olds building engineering projects that I did at university,” Nanan said. “Once you give them the opportunity, the education, and the materials, they just take it to another level. I’m not pushing them, they’re pushing me. They want more tools, to the point where we’re doing things at a post-secondary level.”
Nanan’s five-year-old daughter Emily showed off a computer game she made by herself using block programming software called Scratch.
“This is a great way to introduce coding to any age, but especially younger kids,” Nanan explained. “They’re just dragging and dropping, but they can do a lot of advanced stuff by … arranging blocks that represent different functions. It’s similar to text-based coding, but it’s easier to work with.”
Emily’s face was a picture of concentration as she explained her game. She designed the background, the characters, and the goal. When she noticed something not behaving how she wanted, she immediately began problem-solving to fix it — on her own initiative.
Nanan believes learning coding skills teaches children logical thinking and problem-solving in a way that is superior to traditional learning methods. He holds technology workshops at the Moose Jaw Public Library and in local schools.
“I’m excited to keep growing and seeing what these students can do,” he said. “I’d love for this to become my full-time job.”
