Robotics made half a dozen of his students eager for college last year, so teacher Mike Dischner wants more of it in his classroom.

"I've decided I'm going to center my program around robotics and modern manufacturing," the McKeesport Area High School and Technology Center teacher said.

Dischner and the high school ventured into robotics for the first time last year when the Heinz Foundation helped them enter a robot in the FIRST -- For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology -- Pittsburgh Regional Robotics Competition. The team, "Natural Selection," was part of the winning alliance for the regional competition and placed 23rd out of the 85 teams in its division in the national competition.

More importantly, from a teacher's perspective, students who had been indifferent toward college now are eager.

Dischner is one of 15 teachers from 14 local schools who are attending a five-week program at Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Consortium in Lawrenceville. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the program encourages teachers to research robotics so they can incorporate it into their teaching.

Robin Shoop, director of educational outreach for the consortium, said the program is part of an effort to introduce robotics concepts in the classroom so students face less of a hurdle in learning modern job skills. While manufacturers have been cutting traditional blue-collar jobs, they're actively seeking robotics engineers and technicians, he said.

The teachers learn by doing. For example, they programmed a machine that assembles a hot dog. A platform holding a bun moves into position under a machine that drops a cooked hot dog into place. The platform then moves under an onion dispenser, and an arm pushes the completed hot dog onto a tray.

The teachers also designed a system to move canisters and sort them by width.

The main task with the hot dog maker is learning how to program the robot so it does several tasks in the proper order. The canister sorter is more difficult. The teachers start with the goal of moving and sorting the canisters and have to design the system from scratch.

"You could actually do the same open-ended assignment with the kids and see what they come up with," Shoop said.

Carrick High School electronics teacher Bob Baltos said robots provide a concrete example of what he's teaching kids. Students can't see radio waves, for example, but they can see how a radio remote can control a robot's movements.

Building a robot also provides a hands-on learning experience that is more memorable than lectures and multimedia presentations, he said.

Dischner said he bases his course on the belief that robotics and the tool and die manufacturers concentrated northeast of Pittsburgh are the future of the local economy.

"I'm trying to position my students for careers in the two industries centered closest to our city," he said.