![Picture](/uploads/2/6/5/7/26573602/4247844.jpg?83)
For Week 3
Due to a FIRST Robotics competition, only 12 students showed. At least 3 of these were members of teams competing in that event but chose to attend the Robotics Academy instead. Laura Rogers, a hypothetical 17 year old, college-bound tennis player was described and introduced as the client to be served for the prosthetic arm competion. When “Spaceman” declared that he would “gladly cut his arm off” to receive a high tech one, he was asked to reconsider that the best prosthetics only restore 40% functionality for a limited time and how last week’s speaker, Rebecca, said that an amputee’s secret is in knowing that “EVERYTHING IS HARD”.
We began the day with a digital literacy workshop led by Skip Jones, Comp Sci teacher at MLK High. Skip introduced the idea of engineering design notebooks to the student & spoke of how it is used to professionally document a project in detail. Students asked about how it differs from the typical composition notebook, why writing in ink is necessary, why erasures are not allowed, and if it can also be done online. This was a Q/A session where anyone could and did participate. Of note, students were somewhat surprised to find that data anamolies were important to track until, I explained that these “outliers” break the typical patterns found within routine observation and are often the key to new findings or even the next breakthrough in research.
Dr. Ryan Baxter, also of MLK High, instructs the CAD sessions and introduced the academy to tinkercad, a 3D design platform. “Spaceman” who has used autocad was impressed at the capabilities of the program while others liked the many prefab designs available. All are customizable, but products can’t be sold unless the design is original. I thought this was a good time to interject and explained the concept of intellectual property. Students seemed curious to hear of building models and using them render 3D images. It was even more surprising to hear that medicine focuses 90% of its resources on palliative rather than preventive measures. However, Dr. Baxter did explicitly state that certain measures such as prosthetics can only alleviate pain and physical ailments. It and other palliative treatments may serve as necessary attempts to restore function to disabled individuals. How user friendly is that! It actually works in conjuction with a 3D printer (a self-replicating Makerbot) that works likes a reverse engineered CD player/turn table. An object placed centrally on its round surface is laser scanned and printed from the bottom up – a hard plastic of liquid metal serves as the ink.
Tariq, a computer programmer, runs the RobotC course and introduced the academy to the Lego NXT robot which employs RobotC just as the prosthetic arm teams will build. Students then formed three teams of 4 to assemble the NXT. Desmond, an engineering major, suggested that each team assign roles to each member to work an efficient assembly line. We noted that only one team did. While they had the initial advantage, another team finished first by following their own idea to each build separate units of the robot. Students seemed very competitive and wanted to be the first to have RobotC commands uploaded to test their robot’s movement.
Just as Dr. Baxter and I discussed how every middle school in America should be able to offer tinkercad and NXT programs, Skip called me over to watch my 3 and 5 year old nephews use tinkercad. How user friendly is that. The youngest also learned to tie his shoes and said “What’s up young man?” – Tariq’s catchphrase – all day long. His brother meanwhile later had a stomach due to eating too much pizza.
Here’s a link to a great article from Ntl Geographic Magazine:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/brain/bionic-brain#/close-modal
and a resource to help students chronicle their project or other stories online:
https://www.blendspace.com/resources
Due to a FIRST Robotics competition, only 12 students showed. At least 3 of these were members of teams competing in that event but chose to attend the Robotics Academy instead. Laura Rogers, a hypothetical 17 year old, college-bound tennis player was described and introduced as the client to be served for the prosthetic arm competion. When “Spaceman” declared that he would “gladly cut his arm off” to receive a high tech one, he was asked to reconsider that the best prosthetics only restore 40% functionality for a limited time and how last week’s speaker, Rebecca, said that an amputee’s secret is in knowing that “EVERYTHING IS HARD”.
We began the day with a digital literacy workshop led by Skip Jones, Comp Sci teacher at MLK High. Skip introduced the idea of engineering design notebooks to the student & spoke of how it is used to professionally document a project in detail. Students asked about how it differs from the typical composition notebook, why writing in ink is necessary, why erasures are not allowed, and if it can also be done online. This was a Q/A session where anyone could and did participate. Of note, students were somewhat surprised to find that data anamolies were important to track until, I explained that these “outliers” break the typical patterns found within routine observation and are often the key to new findings or even the next breakthrough in research.
Dr. Ryan Baxter, also of MLK High, instructs the CAD sessions and introduced the academy to tinkercad, a 3D design platform. “Spaceman” who has used autocad was impressed at the capabilities of the program while others liked the many prefab designs available. All are customizable, but products can’t be sold unless the design is original. I thought this was a good time to interject and explained the concept of intellectual property. Students seemed curious to hear of building models and using them render 3D images. It was even more surprising to hear that medicine focuses 90% of its resources on palliative rather than preventive measures. However, Dr. Baxter did explicitly state that certain measures such as prosthetics can only alleviate pain and physical ailments. It and other palliative treatments may serve as necessary attempts to restore function to disabled individuals. How user friendly is that! It actually works in conjuction with a 3D printer (a self-replicating Makerbot) that works likes a reverse engineered CD player/turn table. An object placed centrally on its round surface is laser scanned and printed from the bottom up – a hard plastic of liquid metal serves as the ink.
Tariq, a computer programmer, runs the RobotC course and introduced the academy to the Lego NXT robot which employs RobotC just as the prosthetic arm teams will build. Students then formed three teams of 4 to assemble the NXT. Desmond, an engineering major, suggested that each team assign roles to each member to work an efficient assembly line. We noted that only one team did. While they had the initial advantage, another team finished first by following their own idea to each build separate units of the robot. Students seemed very competitive and wanted to be the first to have RobotC commands uploaded to test their robot’s movement.
Just as Dr. Baxter and I discussed how every middle school in America should be able to offer tinkercad and NXT programs, Skip called me over to watch my 3 and 5 year old nephews use tinkercad. How user friendly is that. The youngest also learned to tie his shoes and said “What’s up young man?” – Tariq’s catchphrase – all day long. His brother meanwhile later had a stomach due to eating too much pizza.
Here’s a link to a great article from Ntl Geographic Magazine:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/brain/bionic-brain#/close-modal
and a resource to help students chronicle their project or other stories online:
https://www.blendspace.com/resources