A Lego Reality

I have been wandering around blogging in my head again, but have way too many ideas. Sometimes it is best to start with what is most obvious. In this case, it is the robot table in my living room. On my way home from preschool drop-off, one of the parents said that my Lego team email was hilarious. So, here is my reality. This was my note to the parents of my Lego team this week. Hilarious is an overstatement, but probably slightly more entertaining than the Kindergarten newsletter that she had read a few minutes prior.

A little official Lego news attached to the bottom. Homework also on bottom.

Thanks for coming tonight!

We were bummed that Charlie was sick, but I think we had a very productive meeting. We worked on the robot tonight, and here is what we learned (okay, what I hope they learned!).

1. Making the robot do what you want is not as easy as it looks (but they are so smart they will be able to figure it out, if they work hard and THINK and work TOGETHER)

2. C = 2 pi R. R is the distance from the center of the left wheel to the center of the right wheel, because the center of the right wheel doesn't move while the left wheel drives around it.

3. 1/4 C is how far that left wheel has to go to turn the robot to the right in a 90-degree turn. Get it?

4. If one rotation of the motor = 6.75 inches of forward movement, then you have to decide what percentage of that 6.75 inches you want to move the left wheel to make that 1/4 C movement. In this case, 1/4 C was 6.125 inches. The "factor" was written down by the Whitham kids, but was just a little less than 1.0.

5. If you do the math, it actually happens in real life too (there were some high-fives and actual excitement about that). This makes my heart sing.

6. ISH is not a unit of measure, but it is fun to say.

7. It is easy to forget which way you are going if you label your MY BLOCKS things like "opposite" and "unopposite". OOOPS

8. The wheel doesn't slip if it starts out by moving slowly and then picks up speed. (They learned that at the Rockwell event, but this was a good application).

9. Your coach thinks its really cool that the team spent 2 hours understanding and executing a right turn. She must be nuts! (We will continue to work on gracious professionalism. I know it is hard to contain oneself when calculating circumference and making subroutines, but we need to maintain some sense of order).

HOMEWORK:

Williams kids were asked to get the right-turn calculations into the notebook. Their dad has all the details and I think it just needs to be recopied. Please help them understand it on a general level. Ask them about it.

1. IF you haven't finished the food research, please do so. Basically, the kids need to be able to explain the process from nature to table for their food. It doesn't have to be perfectly correct, but if they are way off base, please help them look stuff up. Encourage them to think of reasons why their food would be interesting for the group.

2. If your child IS particularly interested in doing the food they are studying, then encourage them to look up local information. Where would we find more information? Is there someone in the area who would want to know about an innovative solution?

3. If your child thinks this is a horrible assignment, then have them think about contamination and talk out possible questions for other people's foods. (In the car on the way to your next activity - if you have to). Ask them to present to YOU their food. (Between bites at dinnertime works for this). PRESENTING is an important skill. It is okay if Johnny doesn't really care about eggs. But, we have to choose something. I also don't want there to be a huge struggle only to discard their particular food. This is an exercise in understanding the process and how to think about it and practice presenting it. NOT about why Maggie's ice cream is better than Andrew's fish. Don't tempt me to make salmon ice cream.

Bwa ha ha ha.

Thanks again!

Awesome Eyeballs

I’m not sure I’m smarter than a second grader.

When I visited MIT back in September, I spoke with Professor Woodie Flowers after his presentation on FIRST Robotics & Lego League (Lego League is the ‘little league' for the Robotics challenge). After his very inspiring introduction to the program, I went up to say ‘hello,’ express my general admiration (he is a demi-god of mechanical engineering after all), and ask some questions.

In his friendly sort-of-way, he threw down the gauntlet. I had made the mistake of thanking him for something. I should know better. No, he didn’t say ‘you’re welcome.’ He smiled broadly.

“You owe me, then. Start a team.”

Oops. I should know better.

I was thinking about it when I ran into an old friend outside of the 10-250 lecture hall. A short conversation made it clear his kids were only slightly older than mine, and he was starting a Lego League team this year. The third member of our conversation gushed about her experience.

“It was so incredible. You’ll never, ever regret it,” she went on emphatically. “My kids love it. I really have no choice now that I’ve started it.”

Within a week of returning to Ohio, my team was fully registered, Legos were on the way, the calendar established, and my fate was sealed.

I didn’t think it would be that inspiring, but it would be fun. I would take it for what it was and see where it went. I was sure she was exaggerating.

Except for one thing, I was wrong. It was that inspiring. It was just as awesome as she had described, except the parts that were even better.

The kids were amazing.

Oh, yes, they were jumpy and noisy and a little wild on Friday afternoons, but you’ve never seen kids more excited about learning. I was very prepared for the sessions, of course, but I was never prepared for where the kids would take the sessions.

Have you ever brainstormed with second graders??

I can assure you, I had nothing to do with the name “Awesome Eyeballs.” In fact, if I had taken the time to look, I imagine the mothers were rolling their eyeballs behind the kids. We shrugged our shoulders and all gave three cheers for the “Awesome Eyeballs.”

I also had nothing to do with the subject we studied.

The task was to decide on an object and learn about how that object moved from wherever it was made or grown to where the kids were now. I started by drawing a value chain of a pretzel on freezer paper across my dining room wall.

Did you know that kids understand value chain analysis? They understood it. They added to it. They thought about it. And, while I was busy scribbling all the kids’ thoughts across my wall, someone ate my pretzel (and the rest giggled uncontrollably).

So, we brainstormed ideas for things to analyze. One of the kids suggested electricity, and there was no going back. A mother gave me a look of mild horror. Electricity?? But, it was electricity: too late.

And so I spent a little time contemplating how to explain electricity, “electrons in motion” to second graders. They wanted to know all the details so badly. I wasn’t going to get off easily with this crowd.

We started from the beginning. I gave them magnets and safety pins to feel how magnets pull on the electrons in metal. We talked about how magnets pull electrons in wires to start them in motion. I made up a game in which the kids were the wire and they passed Duplo block “electrons,” but only one at a time, and the electrons could not pass and had to stop if one stopped and their circuit was broken.

They understood everything immediately.

They asked smart questions and made even smarter observations. We easily brainstormed the electron value chain on a new piece of freezer paper, and each child went home to investigate his or her own piece of that chain on the internet.

At the next meeting, they each presented their newfound knowledge to the rest of the team. You could tell they were proud. You could tell they understood it. They brought in pictures and hand-written notes. One of the mothers brought in a circuit with a battery and a lightbulb. Another mother confessed to finding electro-magnetism interesting.

Oh, yes, and we used Legos too.

At one of the early and boisterous sessions, I asked them to build the strongest tower they could out of Legos. Except, of course, they only had ten minutes and they were absolutely not allowed to say a single word or make a noise.

For ten beautiful minutes, I heard nothing but the sound of clinking Legos. I’ve never seen second graders so focused and quiet.

They used Legos at every session, but towards the end we focused on building our electrical grid – wind mill, substation, high-tension power lines, etc. The creativity was astonishing. They worked in teams of two or three on each piece.

As time went on, the parents came up with more and more eyeball themed items. I had always planned on making them t-shirts for the expo, but as time drew near I felt increasingly compelled to make it a truly “awesome” eyeball. They deserved it.

They needed a shirt that would match their pride. The logo designed itself. I just happened to be holding the pencil.

The day of the Expo, they all arrived promptly wearing their t-shirts and eyeball glasses. They were prepared to explain their work. They took turns speaking. They answered the judge’s questions and provided additional information. They were truly an awesome team.

On the way into the auditorium to receive their trophy, they started high-five-ing the other teams as they passed.

My cheeks turned pink with pride.

Now I’m one of “them.” I’m committed, and gushing, and the children will require me to coach them again. Two of them even sent me 'thank you' notes, with hand-drawn pictures. I have "no choice." My fate is sealed.

All of the sudden, I want to thank Woodie Flowers all over again.

Maybe I will. I just don’t learn my lessons as well as those second graders.