By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Using their iPad, Meadow View Elementary School gifted students Rylan Pickett and Kensley Clough quickly figured out how to write a string of code to make their “Sphero” computer-controlled balls jump up and down “forever.”

After a few minutes of laughter as the students watched the results of their computer programming, the Sphero gave out.

“Mrs. Thigpen, we can’t get it to jump anymore,” Clough said as she presented the ball to MVES gifted education teacher Lindsey Thigpen.

“I think it’s just tired right now,” Thigpen said as she verified the device’s battery was running low.

After seeing the fun the girls were having, their classmates, Daniel Wriston and Connor Harless asked them how to write code to make the motorized ball jump continuously.

“Let’s make ours jump forever too,” Wriston told Harless, drawing a word of caution from Pickett.

“Don’t do that, it will make it really tired,” Pickett said.

Within a short amount of time on Dec. 8, the GRC students learned how to write code and manually control the motorized balls to maneuver around obstacles and even jump off of small plastic ramps.

What the students saw as simply playing with toys was actually an experience possibly laying the foundation for a future in computer science, Thigpen said.

“They are playing while they are learning, which I think is important for all kids,” Thigpen said. “This has been really fun.”

Beginning the week of Dec. 7, Thigpen’s students began completing activities designed to hone their computer skills. In addition to programming the Sphero balls, the students also used a program on Code.org to write code guiding an Angry Bird through a maze and utilized color-coded lines to provide movement instructions to a small robot.

Most of the equipment the students used during the activities was purchased using a grant Thigpen received last summer from the Alabama Association for Gifted Children.

Throughout the semester, Thigpen has been challenging the students to think about their possible future career paths, and the week of Dec. 7 marked the first week her classes focused on computer science careers.

“I don’t think they realized just how many jobs need computer programmers,” Thigpen said. “We are just starting out this week, but we will get more in-depth after the Christmas break.”