{"id":16560,"date":"2025-09-13T19:17:45","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T19:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-middle-school-robotics-program-taps-into-creativity-and-teaches-problem-solving\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:58:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:58:36","slug":"mancos-middle-school-robotics-program-taps-into-creativity-and-teaches-problem-solving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-middle-school-robotics-program-taps-into-creativity-and-teaches-problem-solving\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos Middle School robotics program taps into creativity and teaches problem-solving"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mancos
Mancos Middle School students building robots in the school\u2019s robotics enrichment class. (Adyan Farrar\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Mancos Middle School\u2019s robotics enrichment class teaches students creative thinking and problem-solving. The quarter-long elective is available to sixth- through eighth-grade students but currently includes only eighth graders.<\/p>\n

The class, taught by sixth-grade science and math teacher Brady Archer, focuses on engineering design principles and basic programming logic through hands-on robotic projects and challenges.<\/p>\n

Each quarter, students tackle a unique challenge to test their creative and technical skills. This quarter\u2019s project, dubbed the \u201cFast Bot,\u201d tasks students with making \u201cthe fastest robot possible\u201d while ensuring it is structurally sound and equipped with a sensor to start the robot.<\/p>\n

Past challenges include the \u201cSumo Bot,\u201d in which robots competed to push each other out of a circle, and the \u201cTennis Ball Challenge,\u201d which required robots to retrieve a tennis ball. \u201cAdvanced Robotics\u201d explored autonomous and remote-controlled robots with more complex programming.<\/p>\n

The robotics program began in 2008, when a group of Mancos students taught by Archer competed in the Lego Robotics Challenge. The following year, students transitioned to Vex Robotics for a more versatile platform. To support his students\u2019 learning, Archer attended specialized training at the National Robotics Engineering Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Soon after, Mancos Middle School invested in professional development and purchased robot parts to fully establish the program.<\/p>\n

Eighth grader Riley Drye described the program as a \u201cnice challenge to my brain after sitting for awhile, really fun because you get to build your robot and program it over and over. Once you get it right, it\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fellow eighth grader Shannon Murphy said the students \u201cmake robots, use electricity and be creative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Archer emphasized the class\u2019s hands-on, project-based structure, adding that it offers a break from traditional classroom work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives kids a chance to do hands-on activities,\u201d Archer said. \u201cKids have to do paper stuff all day, this class is all-project and performance-based. Students might find challenges in other classes but come in here and thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Program has been at school since 2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[155,28,83,1074,392,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-mancos-middle-school","tag-mancos-school-district-re-6","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16560"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20268,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16560\/revisions\/20268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16560"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}