Making School Work for Students

In my last post, I mentioned the disappointment I experienced when only three of the nine girls I recruited for the after school FLL program decided to join the club. My disappointment was compounded when, after speaking to the entire middle school, only three boys signed up for the program.

It didn’t make sense. My presentation went well. The kids were actively listening. They were clearly interested. They appeared super curious, so I couldn’t understand why, after such a positive reception, there were only three names on the club sign-up sheet.

Staring down at the empty spaces on the sheet, I felt defeated. Quite honestly… I felt a little embarrassed too. I had been pushing this robotics club for two years; I had not only registered two FLL teams for the season, but I had also agreed to collaborate with the University of Pennsylvania to host an FLL Qualifying Event. What was I going to say to them… “I know we agreed to host the FLL event, but as it turns out I’m completely useless when it comes to recruiting students for after school clubs.” Ugh. My stomach hurt.

I gave myself a few hours to just be disappointed and to get to the point where I could “accept what is so”. I pulled it together and started to think through the situation. I knew there were students who wanted this club on campus. They had been asking for it. So where were they now?

Obviously, I was doing something wrong. There was something about what I was offering that didn’t work for the students.

The Ugly Side of Progress: Telling the Whole Story

When I started this blog, I wanted to “create an archive of our efforts. A timeline, map and story that tracks our progress from our start at “no STEM program” to an “award winning STEM program”.

I realized recently that I have been sharing a pretty biased version of our school’s story all along. I tend to share when I’m excited and when I’m experiencing success.  I’m less likely to share when I’m upset and butting my head against failure and frustration.

I haven’t blogged about the endless hours I spent trying to put together budgets or researching programs and curriculum to include in our STEM grant proposals. I definitely haven’t written about the overwhelming feelings of inadequacy that I had while trying to piece that information together. I haven’t written about the rough days with the kids or the administrators when I felt like a poser, under-qualified for the tasks I was tackling, just doing my best to stay two steps ahead of the game. You get the picture.

I keep the ugly stuff to myself, but I shouldn’t, and here’s why.

Two-wheeled Bot. My first attempt at model instructions.

Two-wheeled Bot Instructions

This past August 15th and 16th, educators from around Philadelphia came together for two days of free professional development provided by the GRASP Outreach program at U Penn SEAS. Many of the participants in attendance, myself included, will be rookie coaches for this year’s FLL season and the two-day workshop was designed to be a bit like a boot camp to get us up to speed and to impart the tips and tools we will need to have a successful first season.

The first task our trainers charged us with was to build a simple a simple 2-wheeled robot. One of the challenges the group faced in building the robots was that we did not have a blue print or set of instructions in front of us. (I think they were having a difficult time finding them. I’m not sure.) Instead, our trainer talked us through the assembly one part at a time. This, as you can imagine if you have built an NXT robot before, was challenging. Keeping everyone moving at the same pace was nearly impossible.

As we built our bots piece by piece from oral instructions, I started to wonder how in the world I would be able to recreate the robot once I was back at school. So, I backed up a few steps, opened my laptop and started to capture each step with the webcam. Soon, people around me were asking me to post the pictures or send them to them.

Well… I got back to campus and sat down to build the robot using my pictures and the pieces from an NXT kit, and I quickly realized that there were multiple problems.

Firstly, the angle at which I originally shot many of the steps made it pretty difficult to figure out what was going on.

Secondly, while the model was simple enough for teachers to build and it required few parts in general, it required more parts than are available in a single NXT kit. To build this model, a teacher would either need to pull more pieces from additional kits, or have surplus materials available. This assumes teachers have more than one kit to work with, which is often not the case.

“Well… that’s no good” I thought, and so I started to redesign the bot using only parts from a single kit and documenting the process as I went.

So, for those of you have been waiting for the original photos… I apologize for not posting them sooner. Hopefully, you’ll find the new photos are an improvement and that the photos and steps clearer. The robot is very similar to the one we built with just a few swapped parts to ensure it can be built from a single NXT Mindstorms kit.

Let me know what you think of the model instructions I put together. It was my first attempt and I’m curious to see how easy or difficult they are to follow. Please let me know!

The Wider World of WeDo: Five Must See Models

Despite the LEGO WeDo kit’s simplicity, people all over are finding innovative ways to take WeDo model building to the next level. I thought it would be fun to showcase a few videos that feature the potential of the WeDo kit.

1. The WeDo Cable Car

Stefan Bracher shared his web resource with me in a comment on my home page. His site, which he will hopefully continue to expand, contains videos and instructions for unique WeDo and NXT models.  Detailed instructions on how to build the cable car model featured in the video can be found on his site.

2. The WeDo Drawbridge

This video posted by wedouser on his youtube channel highlights the intersection of imagination, art, and engineering as the child in the video walks a LEGO man up to the edge of the water he has drawn and waits for the drawbridge to lower so he can safely pass. Notice the printer paper he’s used to draw his water… brings back memories. 😉 

3. The WeDo Conveyor Belt

This conveyor belt model posted on youtube by user sanmishr uses few pieces that are not included in the WeDo kit, but none that are hard to come by. I can easily imagine tying this model into a social studies lesson on Ford and the assembly line.



4. The WeDo Windmill

One of the things I love about this video posted by glglace, is that despite the fact I do not speak Chinese (I think it’s Chinese), I am able to appreciate the interaction between the child and adult in the video and understand the child as she describes and demonstrates how the model is working. (One of my favorite moments from teaching the Grade 1 unit last year, was listening as the children easily articulated how models worked during their final assessments.) This terrific windmill model could easily be incorporated into a green energy lesson.

5. The WeDo Shuttle Launcher 

This video posted on youtube by user sakiv features a boy explaining how his creatively designed shuttle launcher works.

Do you have an innovative LEGO WeDo design you’d like featured here or that you’d like to share? Post a comment and tell us about it!

ISTE 2011: LEGO Workshops (Post 2 of 2)

ISTE 2011 Post #2: Notes: Working my way through my conference notes. Trying to get them out of the brain and onto the page. 

LEGO Sponsored Workshop: Revolution through Serious Play and WeDo 

I have only one big gripe as a newbie at ISTE this year; the online program was a pain in the neck to navigate. Searching by keywords brought up a few workshops and presentations, but completely ignored others. “Sponsor Activities” weren’t listed under “Presentations by Time” and… well… I won’t waste your time venting about the schedule. The short of it is that I paid for a half-day NXT workshop, when I could have attended a free sponsored workshop on the same topic by the same presenter, and I almost missed out on the opportunity to attend this LEGO WeDo workshop that I completely lucked into when I happened to walk by and I recognized the familiar kits.

Part 1: Serious Play

I slipped into the room a few minutes late and took an empty seat. We sat in pairs at workstations, each containing a WeDo Kit and a laptop. While I was interested in hearing what the presenter, Kathy Holberg, would share about WeDo, I was also interested in:

1) Connecting with other educators who are using WeDo in the K-6 classroom

2) Learning about “LEGO Serious Play“, something I had read about, but had never seen.

Kathy started by giving us this brief overview of LEGO Serious Play (LSP). LSP is used as a training tool or training methodology in a variety of industries and businesses, as well as in schools, for purposes such as team building, fostering out-of-box thinking, encouraging the expression of feelings, ice-breaking activities, making connections, aiding awareness of others’ feelings, and developing listening skills. It is also used to improve communication skills, logical thinking, and creative thinking. It is a vehicle for exploring metaphoric language and thoughts.

After her overview, Kathy gave each participant a bag of LEGO Serious Play parts and this prompt:

Construct a model that represents a hands-on STEM lesson in your classroom. Try to use all the pieces.

I looked at the meager pile of random pieces lying on the table in front of me, and thought “Really? Do that? With these?” I looked over at my neighbor; she appeared equally hesitant. Regardless, we set to work clicking and snapping pieces together.  What I found interesting, is that due to the limited number of pieces to choose from, I was quickly forced to let go of any desire to create a specific or concrete representation of an object or idea and to instead embrace my creativity and explore which pieces I could use to represent an object or symbolize an idea. It got easier and easier.

After five minutes, Kathy stopped us and asked us to turn to our neighbor to describe our models regardless of where we were in the building stage. This was my model…

…and here is my partner, LeRhonda’s (@lgreats) model.

I love that even with so few pieces to work with, we were both still able to create and share something unique regarding our ideas on STEM lessons in the classroom.

According to Kathy, a teacher’s, or facilitator’s, main role during a Serious Play build, is to ask questions and move around the room without introducing any type of bias into the building effort. For example, a facilitator should not say “Good job, Tom”, because it could create the impression that there is a “good way” or a “bad way” to complete the activity. The goal is to have everyone be comfortable using the LEGO blocks as a vehicle to explore or express an idea, a thought, or a feeling without worrying about the consequences of not doing it well, or right, or as good as the next guy.

Kathy made sure to clarify that the LEGO Serious Play methodology required specific training in regards to how to“properly” write a challenge question, set the stage for using LSP (LEGO Serious Play), work with students when they are telling their stories, and  connect the activities to student learning, but I would venture to say that any teacher with a bunch of LEGO bricks and a good grasp on inquiry-based, constructivist instruction could engage a classroom in some “LEGO Serious Play”. 

That’s not to say that teachers wouldn’t benefit from a formal LSP training or from having access to specific LSP kits. It’s more to say that the use of LEGOs or other manipulatives to explore thoughts, ideas, and feelings is something that could be done with little to no additional cost to a school that already has access to LEGOs, granted a teacher did a little research to understand the core concepts involved in the LSP model.

Part 2: LEGO WeDo

Kathy next introduced us to the new LEGO Education WeDo Robotics Extension Activity Bundle. Basically, LEGO took the same basic 12 builds for the WeDo Kits and then created a new curriculum set to connect the builds with subject matter from PE, language arts, and social studies. I’m not too interested in purchasing this extension pack. I tend to naturally make cross-curricular connections when using the kits. For teachers who prefer to teach from a written curriculum, or for new teachers who may benefit from the structure of a pre-designed curriculum, it will be great. For those of us who nerd out on the creative aspects of unit planning and lesson writing, it may be less appealing.

The rest of the workshop gave teachers time to explore the kits and build a model.

Here are few WeDo tips Kathy shared: 

1.Use “fun foam” to cover the WeDo kit lids.  Kathy likes using fun foam on the lids so that students don’t get distracted by the images on the lids, so they can use the lid as a building mat since the LEGOs don’t bounce off the fun foam, and finally so the lid can be used as a tray to display the students’ builds.

2. Create an “NXT” parts diagram for organization. Kathy creates a system for arranging the kits and then takes a picture for the kids to help them stay organized. (I thought about doing this when I initially started to work with the kits, but decided not to for the sake of time. I think it’s a great idea for teachers who are uber-organizers.) 

My favorite tip… Use “Alt-tab” to quickly see the desktop when working in WeDo. (If you are familiar with the WeDo software interface then you know it defaults to a full-screen view. This tip will come in handy for sure.)

A Fun Fact: Black axels are even. Grey axels are odd. (I never noticed that.)

During the workshop, Kathy was kind enough to give me the opportunity to plug my blog and to invite teachers using the WeDo kits  to send ideas, lessons, or reflections that I could include in a post or put up as a “guest blogger post”.  Although a few people expressed interested in sharing or posting, I haven’t heard from anyone yet. The offer stands! If you want to get something out there about elementary robotics, but don’t want to commit to your own blog… just let me know.

By the way… we got to keep our LSP kits and we got these sweet keychains. Pretty cool, huh? 😉

ISTE 2011 LEGO Workshops (Post 1 of 2)

I’ve been wanting to post my notes from the LEGO workshops I attended at ISTE 2011, but I’ve been procrastinating. I need to post them so that I can make room in my brain for some new ideas. So here goes!

ISTE 2011 Post #1: Notes from Sunday June 26, 2011…

Introduction to Classroom Robotics: Computer Science in Motion!

The workshop room was full of people seated behind workstations. Each workstation had a LEGO NXT kit, a pre-built Domabot with a few sensors attached, and a computer with NXT-G software.

Our presenter was Christopher Michaud, a Music Teacher at  Nebo Elementary School in Dallas, Georgia, and a graduate from Temple University’s Music program. (Woot! Philadelphia in the house.) He taught himself to program, and now in addition to teaching music, he teaches a computer science curriculum for grades 3-5. He focuses mainly on Open Office/ Alice/ Python/ and Robotics and has a terrific website with loads of great resources. (I couldn’t help but secretly love the fact that his background is in music, since my undergrad was a music technology degree. music + math + curiosity = awesome life!)

Chris started the workshop with a Powerpoint presentation in which he provided us with a brief overview of his goals for the workshop: Build, Program, Experiment, Apply, and listed a few of his reasons for teaching robotics at the elementary level, including my favorite, “Robots are cool.”  (He has headier reasons listed in the presentation that will make for stronger plugs when trying to sell a robotics program to your administration, so  I encourage you to check it out.)

The remainder of the Powerpoint presentation was a bit of NXT Robotics 101, which sensors did what and the like, and was a perfect introduction to NXT robotics.

Within just a few minutes of starting the first workshop activity, getting the domabot to drive in a square, I, and the woman next to me, realized that this was perhaps a true beginners workshop. (As in, many people in the room had never even touched an NXT kit before. I guess it’s time for me to bump my status up to advanced beginner.) My partner was open to going off script to explore some of the features of NXT-G that we were curious about and so we started messing about, clicking on buttons and pulling down menus.

Chris came over and asked how we were doing. We confessed and told him we had gone rogue.

Lucky for us, he was not at all offended and was an excellent differentiator of instruction and he immediately found us a task that would both challenge us and highlight a few new features of the software that we were not familiar with. We worked on “Simple Pi Challenge 1” and “Simple Pi Challenge 2”,  two worksheets which not only provided us with an excellent opportunity to practice writing formulas within the NXT-G software, but which also gave us great take-away lesson to use in the classroom. It provides a perfect opportunity for students to see “Pi in action”.

Once we had worked our way through that challenge, we quickly discussed what else we’d like to get out of the remaining time.

We both admitted that we had no idea how to use… DATA WIRES.

Yep. It’s true. I’ve been avoiding them. I don’t why. I think it’s because I learn so many things just by messing around or through trial and error. But when I approached data wires in this manner… there was a whole lot of “error” at the end of every “trial”. Chris was great, and he broke datawires down for us and helped make them seem at least approachable. (I’ll try to post a simple example of the use of datawires at some point for anyone else who is hesitating on getting a handle on them. Or maybe someone has a great intro resource they could suggest…)

Here are few helpful suggestions Chris made for teachers who are about to take on robotics…

1. Start with a robot built. “Kids understand build. Programming is more difficult.” The domabot is great example of a robot you can easily have ready for students to work with.

2 .Organize the room with computers on the perimeter and workspace in the middle. Have a place  in the room where it is possible to have students with empty hands.

Here’s some new vocabulary for neophyte robot programmers:

Swing turn: 1 wheel turns 1 wheel doesn’t. (Think “pivot” on a basketball court.)

Point turn: 1 wheel turns forward, the other goes in reverse. (Think… I don’t know… any ideas?)

To be honest. That’s all I got for you. Those are my notes. I know. Not very impressive. Which might be why I was procrastinating. But at least there out of my head and on the page. 😉

Thanks Chris! I finally learned to use variables, custom blocks, data wires, and the formula review in NXT-G. It’s about time. My students better get ready… next year will be a whole new ball game!

LEGO WeDo Vehicle Challenge: Using WeDo kits with older students

The LEGO WeDo kit is designed and marketed for early elementary children. It’s so basic that even a first grader can use it, but be careful not to write this kit off as a “just-for-the-little-kids” kit too quickly.

This year, one of my favorite mini-lessons with the 7-9th grade students in the after school STEM club was this “WeDo Vehicle Challenge”:

Design a WeDo vehicle that has either 2, 3, or 4 wheels. Use only the pieces in the Wedo kit. The vehicle does not need to have steering, but it must be able to drive forward and in reverse. Innovation is encouraged. You have two class periods (1 hour each). We’ll present at the end of the second.

The kids usually take a look at the WeDo kit and presume the challenge will not be much of a challenge. Once the students get started, it isn’t long at all before they realize what makes it challenging; there is only one motor, the motor is fairly heavy relative to the parts, and that the axle sticks straight out of the center of the motor. Hmmm….

I’m guessing the challenge is probably easier for students that have prior experience working with LEGO kits and robotics; I’m not sure. (Let me know if you try it.) All my students were new to working with the NXT kits when I tried the WeDo lesson. I wanted to see how they worked when asked to think out of the box and to be creative. Following a blueprint is great for developing spatial skills and following instructions, but it doesn’t necessarily foster innovative thinking.  I found that forcing the students to work with the limited parts of the WeDo kit encouraged them to be persistent, to attempt multiple solutions, to redesign and improve, and to work together.

I’m curious if other teachers and after-school educators have tried using the WeDo kits with older students? Let me know!

Here are a few examples of our WeDo vehicle designs if you are curious… (The kids filmed the clips.)

Taking Damien Kee’s NXT “Wave Activity” for a Test Drive

In my last post about the Tufts LEGO Engineering Symposium, I mentioned Damien Kee‘s  presentation and included an embedded  video of his NXT “Wave” activity.

Yesterday morning, I tried the activity with a group of 21 fifth graders that had never worked with robotics before and it was a blast! It was the perfect activity for introducing the kids to the NXT robots and the NXT-G software.

We met from 9:30-12:15 and took a 15 minute snack break, so all told, we had about 2.5 hours to try to meet the following three objectives:

1) Work collaboratively in small groups to program the NXT Domabot to move from one specified location to another. Time permitting, write a program to turn the robot around and have it return to it’s starting position.

2) Gain a basic understanding of what sensors and thresholds are and find out how they apply to today’s activity.

3)Work collaboratively as a class to program all five NXT Domabots to do a wave and at least one additional choreographed movement.

Students collaborated well and worked hard and met all three objectives by lunch!

After reviewing the objectives, we warmed up with a five minute activity called “Computer Says”. (The activity is similar to Simon Says. I am the computer; students are the robots. Robots should only follow programs that start with “Computer says”) Students made three lines and faced me.

For Round 1, I said, “First we’ll learn use a motor block to run simple programs. Let’s try a few.” I then led them through a few simple commands,  “Computer says take one step forward.”  “Computer says take one step back”.

In Round 2, I said, “Next we’ll learn to use a “wait-for-sensor block and write slightly more complex programs.” I then gave a few commands like these: “Computer says wait until you hear me clap, then take one step forward. Computer says, wait until I shout loudly and then jump”

And finally for Round 3, I said, “For our third objective, we will have to collaborate to write a series of programs to get our robots to work together to create a movement wave. Let’s try to run three programs at once and see what happens. Computer says, Line 1 robots, wait until I clap then put both hands in the air and back down again. Line 2 robots, wait until I clap, then wait one second, then put both hands in the air and back down again.  Line 3 robots, wait until I clap, then wait two seconds, then then put both hands in the air and back down again.” I clapped my hands and watched as the students did a perfect mini-Mexican-wave!

The whole activity took less than 5-minutes, but it helped to build a context for what came next. Being able to refer back to the warm-up came in especially handy when we started thinking about how to program the robots to do a wave.

After our warm-up, students then learned to move their robots using a single motor block. As recommended by Damien in his presentation, I placed two lines of tape on the floor at a random distance from each other and then students worked to program their robots to start with wheels on the first line and stop with wheels on the second line. They set to work trying different motor on durations and very quickly developed an appreciation for the decimal point! If 5 rotations were too many, they tried 4, then 4.5, 4.6, 4.7…

They began to see that trial and error and persistence were important for solving this problem, and they experienced the intrinsic joy that came along with finding an exact solution to a problem.

Soon all groups had mastered the line-to-line challenge and were on to trying to figure out how to turn the robot around and bring it home. Despite my having mentioned that changing the “degree” parameter of the motor block to 180° would not turn their robot around, all the groups tried that strategy first, which led to a series of great teachable moments surrounding what “rotation” meant in the motor block. After some experimentation with the remaining parameters in the motor block, groups soon started to catch on that the steering parameter in combination with the duration setting was the ticket to that 180° turn. At least two of the five groups got the turn close to an exact 180° turn, and the remaining groups were well on their way before I cut them off and moved on to objective 2.

Once the kids had a general sense of how to move their robots and turn them, we regrouped and I introduced them to the sound sensor and to the threshold parameter.

As I usually do when explaining threshold to kids, I said, “I bet you already know what threshold means. Let me show you. Listen to my voice and when I reach your threshold between soft and loud, clap.”

I then talk very quietly and get progressively louder until they clap. I repeat and set the threshold for “really loud”. I do a few more examples of simple thresholds they understand. For example, their threshold for drinking hot liquids. I quickly made the correlation to the threshold parameter on the  sensor block. Students seemed confident they understood the wait-for-sound block and so we moved directly on to discuss how to create a wave.

To plan the wave, we created a chart on the wall that sketched what each group needed to do and then parted. We met back up about five minutes later.

On the kids’ first try, the robots took off and executed a perfect little wave. Wow! We had thirty minutes left to add a choreographed movement of our choice. We lined up 5 students to represent the five robots and planned our dance move. Groups ran off in all directions to program. Shortly after we met back up, pushed run, waited for the signal and yelled “Go” What came next was…

Terrible. Our little robots were all over the place. And so we began to learn about collaborative trouble-shooting. We came back to the line over and over again, each time it got better, but something wouldn’t be quite right.

With one minute left and groups scrambling to download their last attempts, I called them back to the line. The room was quiet. Thumbs went up to signal all programs were running. Their classroom teacher quietly counted “1-2-3” and then the kids yelled “Go!” one last time. You can see for yourself the fruits of their efforts in our video. The simple sequence of movements won’t blow your mind… but the kids’ cheers and screams of enthusiasm may brighten your day. 

Thoughts on the LEGO Engineering Symposium

I’m sitting here on the floor at Boston’s Logan Airport, waiting to fly back to Philadelphia after spending 2.5 days at the LEGO Engineering Symposium at Tufts University in Boston, MA. It feels like a perfect time to get back to blogging. (I took a little break from blogging to focus on my wedding this past Saturday.) 

We covered so much and discussed so many topics over the course of the past two days, it’s hard to where to start or what to share so I’ll focus on the topics that were most relevant to the work I’ve been doing at the elementary level.

ELEMENTARY ROBOTICS AND STEM: The symposium provided a perfect venue for educators and researchers who are developing and implementing K-6 STEM lessons and curriculum to connect to share, and to gather and exchange ideas. Below is a quick review of a few of the topics we explored.

• Listen Attentively: David Hammer and Kristin Wendell led a terrific workshop titled “Seeing the Science and Engineering in Children’s Thinking” during which they encouraged us as educators to be mindful and attentive when listening to children who are expressing ideas and communicating  thoughts about science and engineering. Instead of getting lost listening for the “right answers” or for content buzzwords, we need to listen for expressions of  authentic ideas and for evidence of scientific or engineering-oriented thinking, and then, in those moments, we need to validate and acknowledge the expression of the idea. David Hammer and Emily van Zee have published on the topic in their book “Seeing the Science in Children’s Thinking”. 
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• Connect to Literature: In the workshop, “Engineering & Literacy”, we were introduced the idea that the books that teachers and students are currently reading in their classroom can drive the exploration of engineering problems. As characters encounter problems in the literature, students can be encouraged to engineer solutions to the problems. During the workshop, we worked together to construct a device to keep Peter’s turtle safe from Fudge (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing), and another to get Ralf S. Mouseand his motorcycle out of the garbage can.

  I love the  idea of having students track character problems as they read and later decide which problems to solve. By engineering solutions to character problems students are given an additional entry point for exploring and re-contextualizing what is happening in the books they are reading. Once a solution is engineered, the options for tying back to literacy are numerous. Students can design a poster to advertise their solution using persuasive and descriptive language; they can re-write the ending of the chapter or story based on the solution they designed; they can create a how-to guide for the character or for their peers explaining how to construct their solution..

• Design Challenges: John Heffernan gave a presentation on some of the cool work he’s been doing with his students in K-6 using the LEGO WeDo kits. I especially like that he develops robotics curriculum around specific “design challenges” and themes. (i.e. each student pair creates a carnival ride to build an amusement park.)
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• Allow for Diverse Representations of Ideas: There was significant discussion regarding the importance of providing elementary students multiple opportunities and a variety of means to represent their ideas and knowledge which stemmed from a presentation by Brian Gravel titled “Diverse Trajectories: Students’ Multiple Representations and Varying Ways of Developing Understandings”. A student who struggles to articulate a scientific or engineering-based thought with words, may be able to use gestures, drawings, models, demonstrations, images or video to represent his or her idea.  One of the development labs at the symposium taught teachers how to use a simple Stop-action movie software developed at Tufts CEEO called SAM (Stop Action Movies) to provide students opportunities to represent their ideas using stop motion films. The SAM software is extremely user-friendly and affordable. More information on SAM and a free trial is available on their site.
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• Get All Kids Involved: The topic of whether or not robotics curriculum and LEGO kits needed to be designed to appeal specifically to girls came up during a few different presentations. Opinions were mixed. A few seemed insistent that making LEGO robotics kits and STEM activities more “girly” or “more appealing to girls” was the best way to increase female interest in STEM curriculum and robotics. Others, myself included, felt it was less important what the kits and materials looked like, and more important that students are exposed to female role models who are knowledgeable and excited about technology, engineering and science. In a side conversation, a few of us later discussed the fact that girls might be more inclined to get involves in STEM activities if they grow up with a family member who works in a STEM field.
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  Liz Gundersen & Sandy Jones presented some of the work they have been doing with girls in an after school “Girl-Tech” program”. As a woman who was never much of a “girly girl” as a kid, I did not necessarily appreciate a few of their blanket statements regarding what is and is not appealing to girls when it comes to STEM. I did, however, absolutely appreciate the way they combined creative arts and literature with robotics and technology. One of the projects they shared featured representations of mythological characters automated by electronic and robotic components. As far as I could tell, all of the projects I saw them present would be great for boys and girls alike! Very cool stuff.

• Don’t Be Afraid to Jump In: In his presentation titled “It’s not Rocket Science”, Damien Kee  demonstrated a variety of activities teachers can do in their classrooms using only the “move” block in NXT-G along with a few assembled NXT driving bases. One of the videos he shared showed a series of NXT bases all programmed by the kids to do a synchronized wave.
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  He made the point that even with minimal experience and long before developing any type of serious expertise, teachers can begin using and experiencing the benefits of LEGO robotics in their classroom. His  message reminded me a little of one I’ve been sharing in posts like “Let go…you don’t need to know everything” and “Just do it.” We can’t expect to know it all before we give it a shot. I mean, I’m sure we’d all love to go back to school to get those mechanical engineering degrees we forgot to get, but who has the time or money? 😉 I guess we’ll just have to do our best and count on each other to get to where we’re going.

Overall, an amazing experience! I’m already excited for next year.

We aren’t likely to forget our first competition…

We climbed the steps of the Drexel Daskalakis Recreation Center buzzing over the ease with which we had just passed through our first vehicle compliance checkpoint. It was our first time participating in a competition like this and none of us truly knew what to expect. As we made our way to the pool, students pulled their new SeaPerch T-shirts over their heads and high-fived and thumbs-upped with optimism. 

Once we found the pool and settled into a section of the bleachers, it was time for compliance checkpoint 2; the pool test. Two of the sixth graders gathered up  our SeaPerch (Steve), our control box, and our battery and we headed down to the pool deck to find a judge.  The kids placed the ROV in the water, and the judge asked them to demonstrate a right turn, left turn, forward movement, and backward movement. They did. Then he asked them to demonstrate whether the ROV could dive and resurface… it did, but then, almost immediately, it didn’t. We watched as our top propeller and shaft floated to the surface of the pool.

Checkpoint 2… the pool test… first attempt… FAIL.

Within 10 minutes, the kids had cleaned and sanded the motor shaft and re-epoxied the propeller shaft. Next… the waiting game. Although epoxy sets fairly quickly, directions recommend that it set for at least an hour before getting wet. We had twenty-five minutes. It would have to do.

Meanwhile, opening ceremonies were about to begin. We filed up to the auditorium and found our seats. Since our first pool slot was scheduled at 10 AM, three of us snuck out a few minutes before the ceremony was over to retest and pass compliance. We found the judge and told him we were ready to try again. Our SeaPerch dove. It resurfaced. It went forward and backward. It turned left. It, it, it… it suddenly had a dead left motor.

Checkpoint 2… the pool test… second attempt… FAIL.

I’m not going to lie… for a moment my heart completely sank. The day before everything worked fine; now we were due to compete in less than 10 minutes and we had failed compliance twice. Weeks of work,  help from volunteers, time coordinating schedules, trouble organizing buses, permission slips and contacting parents, finding lifeguards… all this excitement and effort, and now? What would I tell the kids? Or the parents who had shown up to support the team? Or the administrators who were counting on me to get students hooked on STEM activities?

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