SCHENECTADY — Matt Nicoletta traces his interest in robots to a childhood playing with Legos and watching the television show "Battlebots."
These days, the 14-year-old Niskayuna youth is getting first-hand experience building his own robots.
"It's really fun but you've got to have an interest for robots, you can't just come in to camp and expect to enjoy it," said Nicoletta.
Nicoletta was one of 16 middle school students who recently participated in the ninth annual Union College robot camp where the students got to test their vehicle-like rovers. The camp was held last week.
"These kids are the future of the industry," said camp Director Fernando Orellana, a professor of art at Union.
The robots, which were built from scratch by the students, use infrared line tracking sensors that lie beneath the machine to keep them aligned. Bug-like antenna senors act as the robots' eyes, detecting any impact. The rover will automatically turn around if it makes contact with anything.
Orellana said that this is an exciting time for the industry and that Bill Gates compares the robotics industry to where the computer industry was 40 years ago.
"This stuff is going to explode," added Orellana.
Campers agree that building the machines from scratch is exciting but programming the robots can get difficult. Still, the hands-on experience of constructing a machine beats buying an already assembled remote-controlled toy, several students said.
Campers aren't the only ones getting something out of the week-long session. It was also a learning experience for counselors.
"The camp is really good. I knew about the building of the robots, but now I get to learn about the programming of them," said Christine Farrell, a camp counselor and engineering major at Union.
Union College is offering introductory and upper-level courses for robotics as part of its computer science curriculum.
"Hopefully, this will attract students to the computer science program and help with retention. Computer science is suffering a 40-60 percent drop in enrollment nationwide," computer science professor and department chair Valerie Barr said.
For camp director Orellana and foreign exchange student and camp counselor Ondrey Vrzal, this is just the beginning.
Vrzal plans to pursue a master's degree in Cybernetic Measurement back home in Prague.
"I like this experience because it makes me try the role of a teacher," Vrzal said.
As for the camp, Orellana hopes that there can be another camp created for high school and college students.
"My goal is for them to build bipedal humanoid robots in about five years. That would be the best thing ever," Orellana said.
Bipedal humanoid robots are made to mimic human actions and movements. But they cost about $1,000 each to build, which has the potential of halting future plans of the program.
Cost for the camp now is $350, which includes the robot kit, software, programming cables, a manual and a daily lunch.