Cabell and Mason county students and teachers program robots and make birds sing
at RTI�s LEGO® CityOn 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.
Saturday Team Time
October 3,2009
October 31, 2009
