Notes about the day of October 15, 2001
At "work" using LEGO in schools

	At the end of this day one of the Marshall students said 
"I love working with LEGO projects."  
He was at the LEGO CITY that is part of the SENSORS CITY site at 
Nick J. Rahall, II Appalachian Transportation Institute at Marshall University.  
There had been many problems with computer connections 
because of the change to being behind a firewall.  
There was no end of preparations with the LEGO set up, 
RoboLab programming, Red Rover software connections, 
room set ups and internet teleoperation. 
I would have thought every one would be tired of 
LEGO projects but instead there is great enthusiasm. 
	Usually about the middle of October is a good time for the 
Haunted House Ride from the LEGO Dacta Amusement Park set.  
It uses both light sensor and touch sensor and has motion 
but stays on the table.  
It lends itself to a variety of programming possibilities.  
Students can learn conditionals and even multitasking. 
Building is fun because there are so many sub assembles that 
many students can work together.
	Spring Hill has their own Amusement Park set.  
They will be able to add to programming ideas for the next few weeks.
The groups that work with the LEGO set were able to work on the parts 
of the project and have it all work together. 
Those in the first group built the ghost set up with the 
light sensor and the motorized skeleton with the touch sensor.  
They programmed each part to work as separate tasks and 
then showed then off to the rest of their classes.
The next group made the motorized ride part and 
extended the program to include the two people on the rotating ride 
as the way to push the touch button.  
Spring Hill is able to CONNECT to Davis Creek Rover 
and the CITY with their RED ROVER site 
but the machine it is on does not seem to be on a static IP now.
	Davis Creek Elementary was able to connect to the 
LEGO CITY at Marshall University in the early morning.  
They were practicing for tomorrow's Internet connection 
by important Transportation people touring 
Nick J. Rahall, II Appalachian Transportation Institute.  
However shortly afterwards all computers there had problems 
and the systems people at Marshall worked on them during the day.  
This is when the Planetary Society was trying to connect. 
At your reading of this, LEGO.Marshall.edu 
will probably be able to be CONNECTed to through 
RED ROVER software if you already are a school with 
Red Rover (or are an "earth site").  
It turns out that there is more to having a static IP.  
The students built the amusement ride, programmed it, 
showed it off to the health teacher, 
set the monorail in the lower Mars box and 
practiced the teleoperating of the monorail and the CITY.  
The monorail at Davis Creek Elementary is temporary.  
However, later in the day, students from 
New York teleoperated Davis Creek Red Rover.  
That moved the camera and the monorail set up.  
There is always something in the plan that is not accounted for. 
Tomorrow will be an interesting day with the CITY at 
Marshall University and Davis Creek Elementary connecting.
	The students at Marshall are not only getting 
ready for the tour of the 
Nick J. Rahall, II Appalachian Transportation Institute 
but are also working on the SENSORS CITY remote sensing site.  
At the moment RoboLab programs can be run and data can be gotten.  
The site works for everything except for returning data.  
I suppose you could email Linda Hamilton Hamilton@marshall.edu 
and get all your data sent.  
However we are working to get all the details worked out.  
Tufts University has a grant to have all the NASA centers and 
Marshall University be Internet sites for students to do 
RoboLab programming with LEGO projects to do 
science and remote data logging on the Internet.
	It should be interesting to check back in the coming months 
to see what else can be done using LEGO robotics.
Linda Hamilton Hamilton@Marshall.edu
http://www/marshall.edu/lego