Eastside Elementary School’s fifth grade students piled into an operating room at Cody Regional Health last month. They were there to see the robot. 

Students were divided into groups, put in disposable sterile suits and ushered in to see the da Vinci Surgical System. It hung over the operating table with mechanical appendages dextrous enough to stitch up a small paper “patient” and even tie a knot.

The robot and its mock patient were placed under a camera which broadcast to a TV screen, allowing a more detailed view. The robot itself was operated from across the room by registered nurse Kristi Jensen.

“It was really cool,” Eastside student Jonah Alexander said of the experience. “They put [the da Vinci] under like a microscope, they showed us how to do it and showed us they could do stitches …”

The da Vinci has a price tag of $2.5 million, Surgery Tech Donald Foster told the students, but the hospital doesn’t own it outright and instead pays a lease. The robot allows a surgeon to have more control using its EndoWrists, but the system is controlled by the surgeon and not doing anything on its own, Foster clarified.

Eastside students have been learning about robotics in computer science through hands-on activities that include working with educational robots like micro:bit and Sphero. Their trip to Cody Regional Health supplemented this education and is part of the school district’s Classroom 2 Careers initiative.

“I’m always preparing them for robotics,” said Sarah Magargal, the school’s computer science teacher. “The future is robotics, so from kindergarten on, they start learning about robotics.”

That includes learning how to code. And in anticipation of the visit to the operating room, Magargal’s students made “robot” hands which were operated by a pulley system and a motor.

Magargal was nervous when first asked to change up her class for Classroom 2 Careers but it makes the education “more fun and more purposeful,” she said. “It’s more engaging.”

They’ve done a variety of in-class projects with robotics including programming micro:bits to function as dice for rock paper scissors.

“It’s all just learning about all of the different kinds of mechanics that are out there in the real world, and all the different things you can do,” Magargal said.

Middle and high school students have been regularly visiting Cody Regional Health as part of Classrooms 2 Careers, while Eastside Elementary’s participation is in its second year. Once a month, Cody Regional staff have been going to the school and offering a hands-on opportunity through partnership with Magargal, said Ashley Trudo, Cody Regional Health’s marketing director.

The trip to see the da Vinci, however, was the elementary school’s first on-site tour.

Showing students career opportunities is the biggest benefit for Cody Regional Health, Trudo said, as it’s a way to partner with the local school system and create student interest in a health care career.

“It’s about creating a memorable experience for them and getting them thinking about, ‘What do I want to do with my life, what I want to do in my future?’” Magargal said. “I love that it’s starting at elementary school.”