All students on the Gulf Shores High School robotics competition team agreed: the McClungs have greatly increased student interest and opportunity in the world of technology.

Jamie McClung teaches computer science at Gulf Shores High School (GSHS) and recently celebrated a kickoff event for Robotics Club's new HyperWave competition team. His wife, Regan McClung, also celebrated at the kickoff event and reflected on how students in her robotics class at Gulf Shores Middle School (GSMS) may benefit from high school programs like HyperWave.

Regan McClung said the school system implements robotics within STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) programs starting at the elementary level.

Gulf Shores City Schools (GSCS) uses the FIRST program, in which students learn skills in engineering, design, technical reading and writing, computer programming, artificial intelligence, manufacturing and business. Based on how the program looks in McClung's classroom, her students learn how to apply these skills and use them in their daily lives.

While classes have only been in full swing for about two weeks now with the start of the new semester, McClung's middle school class has been working on the graphic design portion of the program. Students start the class redesigning or revamping popular logos then work on designing button pins they will later make in class. To wrap up, students use AI to brainstorm designs for a robotic arm they will later build out of LEGOs to complete a variety of challenges and tasks.

Students sit around four large tables in her classroom, each with a LEGO-filled section in the middle used for exercises like learning to build vertically without using regular building blocks and, naturally, creating obstacle course-like exercises for the robots. The whole back wall is lined with LEGO robots and behind them sit several buckets filled with useful, nontraditional LEGO pieces, such as wheels and bars.

Throughout the semester, students work their way up in STEAM activities using programs like Adobe, among many LEGO tools.

The LEGO Education program is also at the elementary level.

According to the LEGO Education activities sequence, youngest students — from pre-kindergarten to second grade — start with two-six bricks to practice building up, representing physical coding, and create a circle track for a LEGO train to operate on a repeating sequence.

For grades 3-5, students use SPIKE Essential LEGOs to create and test programs that activate certain bricks to light up and cause LEGO cars to operate in a sequence. Middle school students work with tools to create images or words on light-up LEGO blocks built together to make a screen and use python coding in creating a digital sign.