1. Robotics Service-Learning
Max Navid-Oster
Science, Discovery, and the Universe
Major: Mathematics
Introduction to Site
Activities
Impact
Casa de Maryland
The site that my specific group went to was Casa de Maryland, which is an organization that focuses on expanding opportunities for people of Latino descent and immigrants in Maryland by providing classes, job training, help with citizenship, legal help, and many more programs to help out the immigrant and Latino communities.
Kids at Casa
Although their main focus in on adults, they also provide after school programs for children which we were able to be a part of. Our professor reached out to Casa, and Casa added an after school Lego robotics club which we were able to teach.
Casa Contact
th Ave. Hyattsville, MD Tel:
Introduction to the Robot
The first day of robotics club was set aside for introductions and getting the kids thinking about what a robot is, what one is capable of, and how they would design one that would accomplish our final challenge, a robot sumo wrestling contest. First, the kids built a very basic robot, following the manual and then started to add parts that would make their robot more sturdy against other robots.
Coding
When writing codes for the robot, we started with basic movements and the kids in my group thought of a code that they could write to make the robot dance, getting a general idea of how the robot moves and what it is limited to. Using this information and information that students got from experimenting with sensors, they thought of an idea
for a code to
simulate the sumo
battle by having
the robot
constantly
spin until it
sees its
opponent
then try to
push that
out of the
ring.
Impact on the Kids
I am convinced that we were able to have an influence on the kids at Casa and increase their interest in STEM. Due to a limited amount of time to be able to see and work with the kids, we only were able to go through basic functions of the robot, so the hope is that students will continue to explore robotics and write even more complex codes to achieve harder goals.
Personal Impact
Personally, I did not know anything about robotics and had no teaching experience before I took this course. This course helped me learn how to use Lego Mindstorms, what they are capable of, and I gained a lot of coding experience troubleshooting when the robot was not acting as planned. In addition, I have gained confidence in my ability to teach
younger kids about
STEM.
Casa de Maryland Logo
An example of the type of Mindstorm that we worked with.
Source:
d=1Qytm&fldid=9qJU&datanum=50
Issue Confronting Site
Acknowledgements
UMD Goal
Through the class CPSS240 (Science, Technology, and Society – service learning practicum) students go to nearby Prince George’s County schools and after school centers to teach an after school program about Lego robotics. Because of the need for more people in the workforce that are well versed in STEM related subjects, the goal of this class is to spread STEM education and get kids in surrounding areas more interested in STEM.
At Casa
In my group’s specific case, at Casa de Maryland we were not only able to entertain kids after school, we were able to get them more interested in STEM and put them in an environment where they would learn teamwork and critical thinking skills.
Thank you to Professor Matthew
Aruch and everyone at Casa
de Maryland who helped in
putting this program
together.
Image of a Mindstorm with a pencil attached
Source:
mindstorms-education-ev3-and-ftc.html
Future Work
The Program
The class CPSS240 has been growing each year, meaning there will be more students to go to more schools across Prince George’s County. In future semesters, UMD students will most likely return to Casa and this semester’s kids at Casa showed that they would be happy to come back to robotics club next semester.
Personal
For me, I have gained skills in teaching and I can use the experience that I gained working with kids to do something similar to promote STEM education.
Example of a more
advanced Mindstorm
that we did not work with.
Source:
en-us/mindstorms/build-a-robot/
ev3rstorm