GIBSONTON, Fla. — Students at Gibsonton Elementary are learning a lucrative career skill in fourth and fifth grade: coding. 

It’s all thanks to a grant from the Hillsborough Public School Advocates.

With those funds, the school purchased ten robots for students in the “Coding Club,” and they’re putting them to good use.

“You’ve got to put your angles in there. You’re going to have a dance for tomorrow. It’s got to interact, dance, shake its butt. We learned to do that the other day,” said Cindy Kautz, a teacher at Gibsonton Elementary School who hosts the Coding Club. But despite how that may sound, this isn’t for a dance class.

“They’ve already been building code for the last couple of weeks. So now their codes are going to match with other kid’s codes and have them a do a dance party with their robot,” said Kautz.

Gibsonton Elementary’s Coding Club includes fourth and fifth graders. Kautz says that, in her 25 years of teaching, she never dreamed she’d be teaching kids how to code robots, but they’re all learning together.

“I schooled myself on it fast though, so that way it looks like I know what I’m doing. So we’re kind of learning some things together. They teach me some things and I help them if they get stuck. We work together,” she said.

Gibsonton Elementary teacher Cindy Kautz hosting the Coding Club. (Spectrum Bay News 9/Roger Johnson)

Prior to starting this club, the school offered students a one-day coding experience. They say 99% of students who participated said they would love to learn more about coding.

“When we do this, we have to make sure we plan the right timing, the right seconds. There’s basically math in the coding,” said fourth-grader Kobe Fipps, as he showed the coding on his computer.

Kautz says as a teacher, it’s inspiring to see students so excited about learning, especially when so much math is involved. And thanks to these robots, students are exposed to a career they otherwise may not have known anything about it.

“I have a couple back here who say, ‘I want to do this. I want to make my own robots.’ And we watched battle bots. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that. That got them totally interested in battle bots. That opened up a whole know world to them. They were really excited about that. They could take it as a hobby as well as a career and make money from it,” said Cindy.

And whether these future coders end up building robots to battle it out on game shows, or designing the latest and greatest software, Kautz says helping write the code for their future is one of her greatest creations.