Engineering students this fall may be having a tough time keeping up with Cameron Robinson, a 13-year-old junior who started his first semester at the University of North Florida in August.

After moving around the United States several times when he was younger, Cameron Robinson and his family moved back to Jacksonville in 2020, where he graduated from Florida State College at Jacksonville with his associate of arts degree at 12 years old in May. Cameron Robinson and his parents Sandy Robinson and Greg Robinson, decided the next step was to enroll full-time at UNF where he declared a major in electrical engineering with double minors in math and computing.

Although Cameron Robinson plans to stay at UNF for his master’s degree and take graduate-level classes near the end of his bachelor’s degree program, his long-term goal is to get his PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

So far, Cameron Robinson has enjoyed his experience, his professors and the environment at UNF. Compared to FSCJ, he has found that UNF is bigger and has more opportunities for him.

“UNF feels like my home now. Even the market days, FSCJ never had that. So UNF is a whole different world almost,” said Cameron Robinson.

Until reading UNF Newsroom’s article featuring Cameron Robinson, his professors did not know his age.

Although his peers know his age, they treat him like any other student.

“I have a lot of friends now because of my lab partners in engineering and chemistry. I definitely fit in. They treat me like another student,” said Cameron Robinson.

When Cameron Robinson was 7 years old, he started college part-time while still enrolled in elementary school. 

Although Cameron Robinson skipped kindergarten, his parents did not want to have him continue skipping grades.

“The problem with the school system is that the only answer they have is to skip a grade. And if you keep skipping, then you’re too young with your peers at that age,” Sandy Robinson said.

“When it came time to school, we would put him in the gifted program, but it still wasn’t enough,” said Sandy Robinson, the vice president and head of revenue operations at a Fintech company.

In middle school, he still attended college classes, but was enrolled in middle school full-time for social benefits. Robinson’s parents, who both work remotely from home, would take turns driving him and sitting in on his college classes to ensure he paid attention to the lectures.

Cameron Robinson shared his experiences in elementary and middle school. 

“[In elementary school] I would always be more hyper-aware of things.” Cameron Robinson said. “Like they would teach us basic times tables, but I did that when I was two. It was almost like I was bored kind of in elementary school.”

“[Middle school] was a nice experience, but it was just weird balancing that much school and college,” said Cameron Robinson.

As of August, Cameron Robinson has become more independent and his parents no longer attend his classes with him.

Sandy Robinson gave her insights about Cameron Robinson attending UNF and how he has become more mature.

“As a mom, I was always worried about, ‘Is he gonna feel comfortable?’ but he seems to be fitting right in,” she said.

“I’ve really seen a change in Cameron since coming to UNF because he really likes the environment and the people. He used to just take kind of one class at a time and [now] he doesn’t have to also go to middle school or high school. This is his school,” she said.

His interest in math was fueled when he was very young. 

With a PhD from Berkeley, being a mathematician and a chief technology officer for a healthcare company, Greg Robinson taught his son algebra and more advanced math topics. 

“He was really young and so he was pretty off the charts. The more we gave him, the more he could do and figure out. He just took to numbers really quickly,” Sandy Robinson said.

“My dad has me do one-pagers every Sunday of me having different engineering ideas and one day I got that idea. He wants me to always be thinking of new ideas and explain them in terms of math like writing out formulas,” said Cameron Robinson.

Cameron Robinson shared his idea for an engineering project he plans to start since he obtained approval from his engineering professors to have lab space at UNF. His project plan is to make a special kind of portable phone charger.

“The concept of it is creating energy from when you walk. It’d be like these special piezoelectric shoe insoles. Basically, as you walk, you become a portable charger,” Cameron Robinson said.

Cameron Robinson said he thought of the idea for one of the “one-pagers” he did on a Sunday. 

He also was inspired by this idea because of his cousin who lost the ability to walk.

Cameron Robinson has considered joining clubs at UNF outside of his coursework, including the ping pong club and the American Society of Electrical Engineers.

Upon his enrollment at UNF, Cameron Robinson was not offered any scholarships. His family also did not think about requesting or applying for any scholarships.

“Academically, we probably could’ve looked into it, but everything happened so fast,” said Sandy Robinson.

In his free time, Cameron Robinson enjoys playing video games, basketball, sports, biking and going to the trampoline park.

Cameron Robinson has two older brothers, ages 27 and 26, and an older sister, 24.

Cameron Robinson shared where he sees himself 10 years from now.

“In 10 years I’ll be 23 so I’d probably just be finishing grad school at MIT, and from there I would probably be starting my own business hopefully,” he said.

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