From the second floor of The Possible Zone’s red-brick innovation center in Jackson Square, a squadron of robots clicked and whirred as they chased down green balls in a tangled field of obstacles and sped around a racetrack constructed with blue painter’s tape.

At a showcase, Aug. 21, the robots piloted and pivoted, navigating by sensors and artificial intelligence programming, to an audience of 21 Boston Public Schools students who did the programming and a crowd of educators who came to watch a week’s-worth of hard work pay off at the showcase intended to get the students, all incoming juniors, familiar with computer coding.

The new skills and experiences that the students learned during the week-long program fell at the intersection of stressful and fun, said Giovanna Monteiro, a Mad

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