Children prep for the robot economy
Children at the Tufts summer camp in Massachusetts pick up kiddie skills of the future economy as early as age two - debugging robots, learning code and dealing with tech glitches.
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Medford, Massachusetts
AMORY KAHAN, seven, wanted to know when it would be snack time. Harvey Borisy, five, complained about a scrape on his elbow. And Declan Lewis, eight, was wondering why the two-wheeled wooden robot he was programming to do the Hokey Pokey wasn't working. He sighed: "Forward, backward, and it stops." Declan tried it again, and this time the robot shook back and forth on the grey rug. "It did it!" he cried. Amanda Sullivan, a camp coordinator and a post-doctoral researcher in early childhood technology, smiled. "They've been debugging their Hokey Pokeys," she said.
The children, at a summer camp last month run by the Developmental Technologies Research Group at Tufts University, were learning typical kid skills: building with blocks, taking turns, persevering through frustration. They were also, researchers say, learning the skills necessary to succeed in an automated economy.
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