Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for August 10, 2006 THE FOUR R'S

Reading, 'Riting, 'Rithmetic...and Robotics.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette...

Robots to teach math, science to children

By Tim Grant, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Math and science will look more like fun and games at some Pittsburgh area schools where those subjects will soon be taught using robots.

A partnership between Carnegie Mellon University and LEGO Education has put robots in about a dozen grade schools in Pittsburgh and 50 schools throughout southwestern Pennsylvania.

"The goal here is using the motivational effects of robots to excite more children to pursue careers in science and technology," said Robin Shoop, director of the Robotics Academy at Carnegie Mellon.

Carnegie Mellon has written a classroom curriculum for elementary, middle and high school students to use LEGO's newest and most advanced robot in its popular MINDSTORMS robot building set -- the NXT model.

The NXT robot is built with cutting-edge technology that was not even available to NASA 10 years ago. But thanks to this partnership, the learning tools are available to any math and science classroom at a cost of about $200.

Students are taught how to program their robots for many different uses, including retrieving items and moving things to and fro. The robots can measure the size of a room and even talk to the students and assume a personality.

"They're only limited by their imagination," said Mr. Shoop, who taught at Schenley High School for 28 years.

LEGO is best known for its toy building blocks. Its robots also are made of the plastic LEGO pieces, with students assembling them from kits.

The newest robot was introduced Aug. 1.

Since then, several of the NXT models have been placed in area schools, including Schiller Middle School and Schenley, Allderdice, Brashear and Carrick high schools.

The Robotics Academy, an outreach program within Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute, has worked since 2002 on using robotics as a teaching tool. The Robotics Academy sponsors clubs, camps and competitions for students, develops software and provides training for teachers.

"Robotics is the fourth 'R' in education along with reading, writing and arithmetic," Mr. Shoop said. "Using robotics to get kids interested in math and science is far more exciting than the traditional math and science problems."