Students learn teamwork through robotics

Students at Somers Middle School aren't just reading or dreaming about robots – they're creating them.

As part of a new class this year, teams of students have been able to use Lego robotics kits to design robots and learn how to program them to perform certain functions.

The idea for the class came from a written suggestion by a parent. Gifted and talented teacher Sue Wallace, though she thought it was a good idea, said the school didn't have the resources needed for it.

So, she wrote a grant application to the Parent-Teacher Association for 12 kits. The grant was for roughly $3,250, which was used to purchase the Lego kits as well as the software and books needed.

When she found out she needed to teach two classes this year, she thought robotics would be useful tool.

Wallace gets sixth-grade students for a whole trimester, while the seventh and eighth graders only get a six-week class.

"We learn, learn, learn. Then we practice, practice, practice, and then we compete," Wallace said.

The students have done some internal competitions to test their skills, but none outside of the classroom. Older students in other places in the nation actually attend tournaments with peer schools.

Wallace tries to treat the class like on-the-job training, telling her students it's not a grade they're getting but employment statuses, like employee of the month, hired or fired.

The biggest challenge thus far, said sixth grader Sandra Ek, who is a group leader, was a line tracker code that made her team's robot follow a black taped line, turn around and come back on it.

"It was one of the longest processes," she said. "It took several days."

While Wallace takes care of business in the classroom, she calls Terry Siden, a retired engineer and volunteer with the class, "the brains." He helps the students troubleshoot their robots and programming.

"It's been a lot of fun," Siden said. "I've had to keep practicing to keep ahead."

The hardest aspect of the class for the students, he said, is not the programming, but the teamwork required.

Students are put together on teams of three to five classmates with a team leader who is a sort of project manager. All of their work is done collectively and the leader submits reviews of teammates.

"I don't think they've had to work on teams like this," Siden said. "We're trying to give them the tools to deal with it. It's unnatural for kids this age."

But teamwork is also the number one skill the teachers hope the students will take a way from the class. The students agree that teamwork is a key element, but they enjoy getting to hang out with their friends, since they pick their teammates.

Wallace and Siden also try to make the lessons correspond with what students are learning in their other classes, like science and math.

"It's kind of a progression," Siden said. "There's more and more difficulty as you go. It's a struggle for them to understand the logic of programming."

The students can also see the future use of their skills, whether the plan to be scientists or just users of current technology.

Sixth grader Renee Barker projected that robots like the ones used in the class could be used to perform experiments that are too dangerous for scientists.

Some of the students said they liked the class, because they don't see it as schoolwork, even though they are learning from the process. Wallace hopes to expand the use of robotics, maybe take it to the Lakeside Elementary School and perhaps have smaller class sizes and teams so individual students have more opportunities to build and program.

"Oh yeah," Wallace said of teaching the class in the future. "We're already talking about next grant and what we're going to try to ask for."