Students made last minute tweaks to their LEGO robots Wednesday morning in Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation’s Virtual Academy. The project aims to connect children who are primarily homeschooled through online classes with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields.
Virtual Academy students Madilynn McDaniel, a 7th grader, took her group's robot into the hall to show what it could do.
“It goes forward for two seconds and kinda takes a 45 degree turn, spins and it will pick up an object by lifting an arm and sliding it back," said McDaniel explaining her group’s robot functions. She and other K through 8 students have been working on teams for the past four weeks.
EVSCs Virtual Academy is a part of the school district's K-12 School@Home program that provides a blend of online and classroom learning opportunities. Janet Leistner, Director of EVSC's Virtual Academy, said the LEGO robots project provides hands on experience and social interaction for the students.
“It’s building, and it’s using all their skills that they’ve learned as well as coming up with a culminating project and learning the social and emotional skills they need in working together,” said Leistner. The teams are required to create a team plan, keep notes on their LEGO building projects, and write a concluding report about what they've done. The project calls for three different types of programming. Each robot has to be able to go in a straight line, do some circles and stop. "They will get a grade on this also," said Leistner. "Each of them[students] gets a science, technology and math grade on their report card for how they've done on the project."
This is the first year for the project. Virtual Academy teacher Jo Burns applied for the Public Education Foundation classroom grant and was able to purchase five LEGO MINDSTORMS Education kits and extension kits for student use. Pleased with this year's success, another grant proposal is being written to expand the kits.
Though still deciding on her exact dream job, McDaniel does want to pursue a career in the science and engineering field. She believes it’s important that more women are a part of STEM related fields.
“Mostly men get the engineering jobs," said McDaniels. "Barely any women go out into that knowing that they can really succeed in it and so it’s really important that women make it farther and that they can progress in the history of women’s engineering.”
Leistner sees projects like this one helping generate interest in STEM fields. "I think that's a strength of our program, " said Leistner. "Several of the young ladies in here[the class] seem to be really interested in the whole idea of engineering. I do think that there is a real interest among young ladies to go for those careers. They seem very attuned to building and creating and programming. I think it's a natural for students now a days and the girls see it as a real positive."
You can see the robots in the upcoming PEF Technology Showcase at Ivy Tech Community College this Thursday from 4:30pm to 7:00pm CST.