Sterling Walker gives his oral presentation of his robot named Gingerbread Man. His robot was painted and made from boxes and cans.

Elemental (Eley) has a plant inside the stomach and is made from bottles—one bottle each to hold water, dirt, light, and air. Arietty Hargrove described her robot as producing plants and flowers to give us oxygen and something beautiful to see and smell.


The first-grade teachers at Pierce Terrace Elementary School challenged their students to create robots from recycled materials in the English Language Arts class, which parallels the use of technology.

Teachers Brian Raye, Rebecca Jones, Nicole Schenker, Charlene Harris, Monica Trojanowski, and Elisa Murrell encouraged their students to gather supplies for the three-dimensional robot project by gathering supplies from cereal boxes to empty paper towel rolls.

The children were enthusiastic with bringing in their projects last Friday. Schenker said, “the goal of the project was to increase our student’s understanding of technology and inventors.”

The children applied some engineering principles to build towers with sturdy items. Trojanowski explained the ELA standards of reading, writing, speaking, and listening were approached with the science standards of physical science, life science, and engineering and design in the curriculum.

This was a great project for parents and kids to work on together, and teachers kept encouraging them to add additional features and décor. Students were encouraged to utilize their creativity which aided in the direction of the design. Schenker stated the creative robots had a wide variety, “cooking, sweeping, healing, candy-delivering robots, and more. The students did an amazing job.”

The project offered the students a novel approach to engage with their course subject while enabling them to express their creativity and work together with their families at home. When Raye told his class of the project’s deadline date, he laughed and said, “A kid in my class said that his dad hasn’t finished it yet.”

The students gave oral presentations about their robot creation to their classmates on stage. Students were given the opportunity to share their robot’s name, the materials used, and the purpose of the robot’s helpful function. This project is done each year at Pierce Terrace.