April 2008 — News
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Robots Rock at California High School
Extra Credit Robotevents.com is a collaboration between Innovation First and Autodesk and is designed to "encourage students and educators to explore the exciting world of robotics and bring real-world experience to STEM learning." It provides access to free software for educators and students, links to curricula incorporating robotics, forums and blogs on robotics, galleries, and, as its name suggests, complete information about a wide range of robotics events. More Information: --D. Nagel |
When Carnegie-Mellon took the $2 million DARPA prize in November for the Defense Department's Urban Challenge, in which vehicles maneuvered along 60 miles of road without a human driver behind the wheel, the school 's Tartan Racing team was showing off the value of robotics. That's the same lesson being taught in a Monte Vista, CA ROP high school class.
Every school day for 56 minutes, Randy Lam's robotics engineering class of mostly juniors and seniors at Monte Vista High School spends its time learning about electronics and electricity, circuitry, mechanics, programming and, most of all, problem solving. "That's a big one," said Lam. "The other thing is managing a program. I think one of the most important things is getting to work as a team--learning to communicate with each other and to give and take."
Robotics refers to a machine programmed by people that does repetitive tasks that are unsafe for humans or less expensive to do by automation. "Robots don't complain," said Lam. "They don't have to have insurance; they don't get sick."
And learning how to build them inspires students to become engineers. "I get calls from Purdue and Davis and San Luis Obispo from former students who were in the class, telling me what they're doing. They're engineers at these schools. They're engineers because they took the class, because they were on the team."
Running a Robotics Class
Lam said that the robotics curriculum centers around specific tasks--putting together an arm that can pick up something or building a robot that can go fast or slow. The students work their way through theory and then are introduced to the actual components that make up a basic robot.
Running this kind of class isn't inexpensive, because it usually involves purchasing robotics kits. According to Lam, outfitting a class of 24 students costs about $2,400. That will buy 12 starter kits with wheels, motors and controllers to enable kids to build small robots that are about 18 inches. The kit, such as the VEXplorer from Vex Robotics Design System, is like a "wireless remote control car," said Lam. "In a way, they're building a wireless remote control car with appendages--mechanisms that can perform various tasks."
