Area schools incorporate robotics into school subjects
Two students work together assembling electronic circuits to make a buzzer and flashing LED from a kit.
Fourth-grade students at Claysville Elementary School created art robots using materials such as popsicle sticks and corks.
Students in the Robotics and Scratch clubs made several artworks out of bottle caps that related to their club. The image of the cat relates to the scratch cat image used in the club projects.
Keara Welsh, STEAM teacher, works one on one with Ava Yeager, a fourth-grade student at Fort Cherry Elementary Center, in the Robotics Club after school.
Rylie Offstein 10, a fifth-grade student, shows one of her projects, building a revolving beacon from an electronics kit.
Jim Brucker, Scratch Club facilitator, works with students in the Scratch Club after school.
Keara Welsh, K-6 STEAM teacher, inspires students before work on their robotic projects in the Robotics Club at Fort Cherry Elementary Center
Third-grade student Abby Hall, left, 9, leans across to her classmate Maikiha Heston, 9, to talk about their virtual pets programming during the Scratch Club session.
Robots are invading Washington County, or at least the art classroom and after-school programs at Claysville Elementary School and Fort Cherry School District.
Thanks to a recent Spark Grant for Early Learning from the Sprout Foundation, fourth-grade students at Claysville Elementary have learned to construct “art robots.” Art robots, or drawing machines, are part of a new Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics curriculum framework instituted this year at the school.
Funding from the Spark grant, along with funding from McGuffey School District and Claysville Elementary Parent-Teacher Organization, allowed the students to visit Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh to work on electrical circuits and toy motors.
After the visit to the museum, students worked with Little Bits, battery packs and other household materials to create moving robots. Little Bits is a system of electric modules that snap together using magnets.
“They love it,” said Michelle Urbanek, an art teacher at Claysville Elementary.
It took Jaelyne Roupe, Brooke Pascoe and Tyler Clutter three different projects before they were satisfied with their art robot. Their robot, designed like an amusement park swing, had markers attached to it to make it draw.
“My favorite part is just seeing how cool it is to watch,” Roupe said.
Still another group made a radio boombox, and it even came with a soundboard. Students created robots from all kinds of materials, including corks and popsicle sticks.
Tom Sarver, the artist who partnered with Claysville Elementary to teach the kids about kinetic art, said he tried to inspire them with all of his projects and teach them some basic skills. The kids learned how to make robots that responded to light, motion and even sound.
“It was truly their inquiry and discovery,” Urbanek said about her students. “It was really student-led … whatever they can think of. My favorite thing is the smiles on their faces and the confidence. They all got something working at the end.”
But McGuffey isn’t the only school district incorporating robotics and other creative ideas into its curriculum.
Fort Cherry also recently started incorporating robotics and computer programming into an after-school program.
Scratch, an online program used in grades three through six at Fort Cherry, teaches students block-based computer programming. The program was created by Massachussets Institute of Technology and Fort Cherry’s after-school program allows kids time to learn more about programming and create individual projects.
Thanks to a 2014-15 STEAM grant, the school was able to work on the construction of the Little Rangers Maker Studio and purchase other technologies. The school district also paid for the after-school programming, which included an introduction to robotics class and the Scratch club.
“The kids who wanted to do both could do both,” said Trish Craig, the director of curriculum at Fort Cherry.
Craig said the school plans on keeping the after-school programs and wants to add a STEAM rotation to the school curriculum next year.
“We have a lot of kids staying after school,” Craig said. “They get to be creative and try these new inventions they’re creating. They’re able to experiment. It’s not all robotics. It is exciting to see the kids experimenting and helping each other and creating.”
Using programs like Makey Makey and Little Bits, students are able to play Tetris using tomatoes connected to wires, and other fun contraptions. Many of them can even play programs they created themselves.
“I think in education, you see a one-size-fits-all. (This is) bringing back originality and creating original thinkers,” said Keara Welsh, the teacher who led the after-school program.
“It’s new stuff you don’t usually learn in school,” said Elonna Coontz, a fifth-grader at Fort Cherry. “It’s a really nice way of learning.”