HEMPHILL, TX – Students from the Sabine County 4-H Club received training on the LEGO® Education Spike™ Prime robotics kits widely used for middle and high school robotics competitions.
On Saturday, November 15, 2025, the Patricia Huffman Smith NASA Museum ‘Remembering Columbia’ hosted an open workshop to introduce students to the world of competitions with an overview of hardware, software, and other components of the kits.
The ‘Remembering Columbia’ Museum’s annual Columbia Memorial Robotics Competition, which is set to return in 2026, utilizes these LEGO® sets to build and program autonomous robots using sensors.
Museum volunteers Andrew Balingit, an engineer with the Sabine River Authority, facilitated the training alongside Terry Cardwell, who also programmed the museum’s tablets for use in coding through the LEGO® Education Spike™ Prime app.
Earlier this year, The Toledo Bend Lake Association (TBLA) generously awarded a grant to the museum to purchase new LEGO® Education Spike™ Prime kits, replacing outdated predecessors. Click here to learn more.
The ‘Remembering Columbia’ Museum plans to host more robotics training workshops in the future. Interested schools and groups should contact info@NASAColumbiaMuseum.com for more information.
The Patricia Huffman Smith NASA Museum ‘Remembering Columbia’ serves as a memorial to the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy and as an educational facility dedicated to creating science and technology-inspiring learning opportunities for children and adults. Learn more at www.NASAColumbiaMuseum.com.
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Patricia Huffman Smith NASA Museum 'Remembering Columbia' 