COCOLALLA — The bugs were battling it out on the floor of the Southside Elementary library on Dec. 6, with one of the stinging scorpions the first to go down.

The bugs, which also included a grasshopper, beetle, praying mantis and a ladybug, were not real bugs having a battle. They were robots controlled by Southside students, who were tasked with programming the bugs’ movements, lights and sounds on a tablet. The Kamigami robots were one of the most popular choices among the students during the school’s coding week, in celebration of Computer Science Week.

“(The students) are basically learning new coding programs and how the robotics work — and I love them because they look like little bugs,” said school librarian Lynette Leonard, adding that the kids love them as well. “And they are really fun to put together; I like that they combine the technology and the art together.”

The robots are origami, she said, so they were built during the school’s STEAM Camp over the summer. They were funded by a grant from The Idaho STEM Action Center, which was the catalyst for the five days of coding events at the school this past week as well. Leonard said when she wrote the grant, she told Idaho STEM she would provide coding activities for Computer Science Week.

Throughout the week, Leonard said, the students each spent an hour in the technology lab doing coding, and then they could sign up for activities such as the Kamigami robots — which of course was the most popular — before school, during morning recess or lunch recess.

Besides coding with robotics, students could also choose coding with Legos or Micro:bits. As the robotics group departed during the lunch recess on Thursday, another group came in for the Micro:bit activity. While the kids were simply learning how to make faces and hack their headphones into Micro:bits, the technology has the ability to build robots, weather stations, tell the temperature and more.

“I love them because they teach Block, Python, and Java,” Leonard said. “I always look for things that progress, and the great thing about this is you can start them with block, move to Java, and then Python.”

The kids did some coding with Legos earlier in the week, she said, where they built mazes with the Legos. Then the students would have to program a little guy that came with the set, giving it instructions such as turn right, turn left or go forward.

Some of the students were amazed at how many steps there were to coding, she said, so she had them imagine how many steps programmers must take for video games. Learning some of the basic coding is a good visual for them, she said, because it doesn’t really compute until they see it in real life.

Also for coding week, Leonard held a family challenge where the kids could go home and do coding with their parents. When they came back to school with a note from their parents, their name went into a jar to win one of the Kamigami robots or a Micro:bit.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.