Davis Creek Elementary Fall 2000 LEGO
Projects This is a journal for the third fall 2000
LEGO
Project of Davis Creek Elementary fifth grade. Mrs. Hamilton spent
the weekend at Tufts University meeting with the developer of ROBOLAB
and learned about new ROBOmath Programs. This project reflects
some of the ideas Mrs. Hamilton gathered from the CEEO.
The resulting model had patterns of behaviors that were selected and woven
together in programmed responses. Davis Creek Elementary participates
in a West Virginia Space Grant Consortium K12 Outreach Grant that affords
them the expertise of Mrs. Linda Hamilton, mathematics instructor at Marshall
University, and the use of LEGO
educational materials. Students build simple machines using LEGO
sets that feature gears, pulleys, motors, levers, and wheels and axles.
Students will later participate in whole language activities that include
building simple machines, writing up their accounts, and using LEGO
CAD to make a lasting virtual model
of their machine as well. Robots are built utilizing light, sound,
and motion sensors, also with microcomputers that are used by students
in various schools around the world to teleoperate robots manipulating
and analyzing data. The Planetary Society sponsors the Mars Red Rover
Program that is connected through NASA educational centers around the United
States, and, indeed, throughout the world. Students may drive the
Mars Red Rover via the internet.
