October 14, 2009
Teachers and supervisor of the Mason gifted program came to
the
LEGO City
to talk to Linda Hamilton and a transportation engineer.
Andrew Nichols of RTI stands with his former teacher Brenda Adkins.
Her LEGO team is going to showcase his intelligent transportation work
at the Public Event on December 12, 2009.
The teachers learned about programming the NXT for the FLL challenge
and visited two TAG classes to learn about programming with RCX and WeDo.
Mrs. Wither's 4th grade students
are learning to program autonomous robots today.
They will try to have the robots bring objects back to base.
Generally the 4th graders learn about simple machines in the first part of the year and robotics in the second half.
Today is their first try at programming robots.
Delightfully they succeeded wonderfully.
Central City 4th grade TAG teacher, Mrs. Curnutte, helped explain the
WeDo projects.
There are three ways to start a WeDo program. Today the 4th grade
TAG learned about start on message.
People on one computer could start the programs on others.
The WeDo projects are connected to a computer by USB.
They made little birds move and sing.
"OK, my hands are off the computer. Who made my birds move?"
They made stories, backgrounds, motion and sound all happen according
to how they programmed it.
Some set up programs to run other's programs.
Cabell and Mason county students and teachers program robots and
make birds sing at RTI�s LEGO®
City
On October 14th at LEGO® City at the Rahall Transportation Institute, Linda Hamilton, LEGO® Outreach Coordinator for RTI and Dr. Andrew Nichols, transportation engineer and Marshall faculty member, demonstrated for teachers and a supervisor from the Mason County gifted program how to use the LEGO®WeDotm and MINDSTORMS® RCX robotic kits. Students from Mrs. Withers 4th grade gifted class then had their first experience learning to program LEGO® RCX robots using ROBOLABtm software to bring objects back to a base area.
In the second part of the visit, Cabell County gifted teacher Mrs. Curnutte discussed and demonstrated Hamilton�s work with the 4th grade Central City Talented and Gifted program using WeDotm robotics allow students to build simple machines and to program them to move. WeDotm was then used by 4th grade students from both Mason and Cabell County to create text, objects, and backgrounds and to add motion and sound on their computers. They then sent messages to each other�s computers to start the programs. These made little birds move and sing, and displayed their stories and backgrounds.
The visit from Mason County arose through the connection Dr. Nichols has with his former teacher, Brenda Adkins and his work at RTI with intelligent transportation. Adkins� FIRST LEGO® League team will be showcasing Nichol�s work in the public event on December 12th. This year the FIRST LEGO® League theme is �Smart Move� which focuses on learning how people, places, goods and services move in your community and developing and presenting a solution to a transportation problem faced by your community. Students then use their previously programmed LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT robots through an obstacle course. RTI is a proud sponsor of LEGO® outreach activities with local schools and FIRST LEGO® League projects.
