Students may once have been hooked on phonics, but today, they’re hooked on robotics.

The English Montreal School Board is setting out to teach the basics of computer programming with Friday’s launch of a new program using robots.

The platform is the first of its kind in Canada and is based on the education model in Singapore.

“We are looking to prepare our students for the jobs that don't even exist today,” said EMSB chair Angela Mancini.

The students seem to be taking to coding – like 14-year-old Jiamei Wang, who built her own computer game.

“It's like a mini computer and we have a bread board where we plugged in lights to make a circuit and we wrote a program on the computer to match up,” she explained.

Using bots to keep the students engaged in science and technology was a no-brainer, said Mancini.

“It really brings the whole idea of technology into the hands of our students, where they see why it works and we’re able to integrate the various subjects that we used to learn in a static, different way,” she said.

While they may not be building full-scale advanced robots just yet, the idea is to get students comfortable with the basics of computer programming as early as kindergarten.

The EMSB is also partnering with video game company Ubisoft, both aiming to position Montreal as a world leader in artificial intelligence.

“We need to develop the up and coming. We need students to be interesting in programming and robotics just so we can sustain that growth as long as possible,” said Ubisoft Montreal communications director Jean-Philippe Grou.

While battling bugs is part of the new training, students are getting the chance to see the realm of programming potential in a hands-on environment.

“I would like to try making one, or figure out how to do all this programming to make it do all these things,” said Malika Miliga, a student at Merton Elementary School in Cote-Saint-Luc.

Fellow Merton student Zachary Mackey is also imagining the possibilities.

“I'm 12. When I was born, there was only an iPhone and now there are robots playing soccer, so it's cool to imagine what it could be like in 20 years,” he said.