“I felt proud of myself for coding and couldn’t believe that I made it work!”
As a 6th grader, Salvador Lofat, from Austin, Texas, was recognized with the 2023 Broadcom Coding with Commitment award for his autonomous robot that uses materials found around the house.
Broadcom Coding with Commitment recognizes students in grades 5-8 who combine STEM learning with coding to solve a community problem they care about that aligns with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.
Salvador built a robotic hand out of Legos and string and tested it to see how much it can hold. He coded the LEGO Mindstorm Brain and titled his work, “Robotics, The Tech of the Future.” “I wanted to find out how hard it would be to make a functioning autonomous robot with materials found around the house,” said Salvador. “I really like seeing what I have created.”
“I have always loved Legos and wanted to do something that helped the world,” said Salvador. “I learned to code because there are just so many things that you can do with coding.”
Basic Coding is a 21st Century+ skill that girls, under-resourced, and underrepresented youth need to become digitally literate and compete for highly skilled jobs in emerging industries built on technologies of the future.
“I felt very happy to have gotten this award. I felt proud of myself for doing this amazing thing, and I couldn’t believe that I did it,” said Salvador.
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Raspberry Pi has free resources to help anyone learn how to code and teach basic coding. Visit the Projects site to get started.
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