<p>Several students in Kyle Sipe's robotics class at Clara Brownell Middle School work to program their robot Wednesday afternoon. The students spent the rest of the period communicating with specialists at Intel as part of the PC Pals program.</p>

Approximately 20 students in Kyle Sipes seventh-grade robotics class at Clara Brownell Middle School in Umatilla sat perfectly still Wednesday afternoon as they strained to hear employees from Intel offer advice on how to build a proper robot arm that is suited best for competition.

After a morning of struggling to get a clear connection via Skype, the employees at Intel finally called Sipe on his cell phone, which he was able to connect to a wireless stereo system in his classroom.

Its funny the computer people are having technical problems, he said with a smile to his class.

The conversation between the students and several employees at Intel was the first of many that will occur throughout the year. The conversations are part of a program called PC Pals, which allows students to ask questions of the employees and, in turn, gain real-life technical career experience.

The last few weeks, the students have been asking the Intel employees questions via email as they build and program their robots, which they will use to compete in a regional competition in January. This week, many students were excited to finally be able to speak with the employees over an electronic connection.

I am super-excited, seventh-grade student Brandon Bensen said. We keep emailing back and forth, but today is the first day we get to (speak) to them.

Benson said he is really looking forward to the conversations they will be having throughout the course of the class.

Sipe said, not only can the students ask specific, technical questions of professionals, but the opportunity encourages them to work as a team to get tasks accomplished.

One of the main pieces of advice that Intel team members offered up to the students Wednesday was they had to work as a team to get things done.

Play to your strengths, one team member said over the phone. Work with one another to accomplish your goals.

Sipe said they will continue to communicate with the employees at Intel to come up with an immediate video connection so they wont have to spend most of the class period setting up equipment to talk with each other.

The problems actually were on their end, but we are going to continue to try and figure this out, he said. Sipe said the program is normally offered to students in the Silicon Valley region, and he is very excited Umatilla is now participating in PC Pals.

The kids have found it to be very valuable, he said.

In the near future, he also hopes to establish a similar agreement with employees at Google.