Clark-Shaw Magnet School/Mobile County Schools

Testing out our robot: Robotics Training--Pittsburgh, PA

Energizing the Classroom Through Robotic Technology --Project Summary:
As professionally trained elementary teachers transformed into middle school Science teachers, our knowledge of programming was limited to our classroom experiences, which was insufficient for our budding Robotics program. We wanted to be trained in robotC programming, so we could effectively teach and lead our students inside the classroom and in competitive situations.

Carnegie Mellon, the creators of robotC, offers programming classes for teachers during the summer months. We traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to spend a week in programming training. We learned pseudo code, graphical language, natural language, and C++ programming language. During this training, we were able to network with other teachers across the country and share ideas and teaching techniques.

The wealth of knowledge and experiences we gained from the training has empowered us to be the leaders and teachers we strived to be in our elective classes and our after school club. We are teaching basic robotics principles, building techniques and the fundamentals of programming. The students have enjoyed getting their hands on the equipment and watching their projects come to fruition. They have taken pride in their projects and are eager to start more. When their programs actually run their robot as desired, the intrinsic reward and feeling leaves them wanting more. They have so many ideas they come up with and share with us sparked from their experiences. In essence, they love coming to class and our robotics club!

The students are now in the process of building a robot that will compete with other high schools and middle schools in our region. They are given a task with constraints where they will have to compete for points. They are working diligently after school and on Saturdays putting in the time it takes to reach our goal. They will display our work and compete with their robot November 1st, 2014 at our local university. In addition in the spring, we will host our own, smaller-scale competition with other middle schools in our area.

We hope by teaching and giving these students the hands on experiences, they will receive a foundation needed for their studies and interests in high school. We hope this will allow them to further their STEM interests where they can work toward scholarships. We also hope this will prepare them to future jobs that are available in these fields in which they have worked so hard and have an interest.

 Handout from Fellowship

Eagle Tech Prezi

Eagle Tech website

Best Robotics children saying thank you.

This is why we do it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB9_huwqdQQ

 

Last modified: Friday, November 21, 2014, 2:18 PM