Red Rover Projects of Linda Hamilton

Math Dept Marshall University

Space exploration by students can get them great places.� I wanted to do the Red Rover project with the Davis Creek Elementary School and so got into grant writing.� NASA Space Grant Consortium gave me the initial money to buy the LEGO and Red Rover software.

Davis Creek students have connected with after school students in the area.� Those students and others that have gone on to middle school have connected through after school FLL and in classes with other teachers.� The high school where Homer Hickam went built RCX projects and teleoperated the DC rover.� Combining the Red Rover projects of Davis Creek Elementary, Barboursville Middle, and Big Creek High lead to Internet rocket launching by LEGO robotics.

Putting this all together was a learning experience about how interconnected the space flights from NASA must be. Building, operating and programming a LEGO rover is modeling the teleoperation of a Mars rover to do scientific exploration.� However there is even more learning than that.� Students learn to work together, learn of other places and cultures and how others live, learn, and work together.� We are not just a society that is contained in a small area or school.� There are multitudes of interactions that make differences to us daily.

First I had the Davis Creek Elementary students build and operate a Rover. Parents, students, and teachers helped make small and large Mars yards.� Working with other area schools we connected with Red Rover to teleoperate. Students on both ends would research on the Internet for questions and answers on Mars to ask the students on the other end.

Mrs. Simon, the 5^th grade teacher at Davis Creek with whom this entire Davis Creek Red Rover project is based, made email pals with an Australian classroom. The culmination of the Australian school year for three years was to have a Rover drive and see the email pals at Davis Creek. Students learned about teleoperation, geography and time zones.

The Davis Creek Red Rover at address daviscreek.cabe.k12.wv.us is up nearly all the time as it is on an interface box.

206.212.22.32 is the address for the LEGO CITY, which is part of the SENSORS CITY site. It runs multiple RCX. You must have Red Rover 4.02 to access.

Linda Hamilton hamilton@marshall.edu

http://netapps.marshall.edu/lego/