Today’s schoolchildren are getting a healthy dose of robotics ‘the newest of the three Rs’ in an effort to inspire more American students to pursue careers in engineering, science, technology and math.
In Galveston County, schoolchildren as young as 6 and as old as 18 are meeting after school to design, build and program robots for competitions.
Students love the program. It’s just so fun? gushed eighth-grader Chelsea Wolfe while teachers are pleased that students are excited about learning.Not only are they absorbing valuable engineering, math and science knowledge, they’re also learning to collaborate with each other and present their research, said local math and science teachers.
I had a parent say to me, “I wish they would get as excited about their schoolwork as they do about robots,’â€? said Anne Morrison, a Galveston third grade science and social studies teacher. “I said, ‘It is schoolwork, but shh … don’t tell them that.â€?
Bots instead of books
At least two county school districts (Galveston and Clear Creek) offer robotics as an extracurricular activity.
More than 300 Clear Creek elementary, middle and high school students participate in the district’s 23 robotics teams. The Galveston school district, which introduced the program for the first time this year at L.A. Morgan Elementary School and Austin Middle School, has recruited 120 students. Fifteen more are on a waiting list.
The district picked those schools because it plans to transform the Morgan Elementary School into a science, math and technology magnet that will feed into Austin Middle School when it becomes a magnet middle school next year.
Morgan students meet two hours a week after school to build robots using a Lego kit, which comes with all the software, hardware and touch, sound and light sensors to make a competition-ready robot.
To prepare for their first competition, students are programming the robot to perform environmentally friendly challenges on a small-scale map.
They create the programming language on a laptop and download the information into their robot. Their robots are programmed to build miniature reefs, install pint-size solar panels on a home, push tiny dams over rivers to stop flooding, switch out toy pickups with fuel-efficient cars and move itty-bitty oil barrels away from water sources in less than 21?2 minutes.
Teacher Antonio Corrales grins as his students crowd around their Lego robot. Robotics training is not only improving behavior and encouraging teamwork – it’s teaching students to be socially conscious too, he said.
Robots 101
At Clear Creek’s Victory Lakes Intermediate School, the janitor’s storage room has been transformed into a robotics workshop. Among the unused desks and old computers, the 20-member ‘Victory Bots’ robotics team built a plywood stage for a robot to maneuver.
Weeks ago, their robot was a box of plywood, motors, PVC pipe and metal. The students met for debriefings in their storage-room-turned-workshop to draw, design, build and test a 17-pound, remote-controlled robot that rolls up ramps, lifts pint-sized boxes and bottles and transports them to another box.
After some mishaps and failures, the students finally devised a robot with a crate, movable arm and pincers capable of lifting and transporting small goods. The robot took home top awards at a recent competition in Galena Park.
“Yeah, it’ really fun” Wolfe said. “It’s better than school. It’s like making your imagination true”?
The Victory Bots team members say robotics has helped them to better understand electronics, computers, simple machines and even cars.
Not only has robotics improved his grades, said Aaron Clark, an eighth grade team leader for the Victory Bots and aspiring aerospace engineer, it has helped him build communication skills. He’s now able to better articulate his ideas and brainstorm with others, he said.
“I think faster, and I can get my ideas on paper”? he said.
As the group practices maneuvering the robot for its next competition in November in Lubbock, others cheer on loudly.
“It’s like scoring a touchdown at a football game”? said Perry Johnson, technology integration specialist. “And it’s awesome because we’re cheering for something that’s educational.”?
By Rhiannon
galvestondailynews.com
