ESSEX — Abbi Boucher pressed the green "run" button on top of the yellow and blue robotic car and it suddenly began to whir across the floor towards Kaitlyn O'Connell.
O'Connell giggled as she slid to the side and the car sped past her.
The car was supposed to stop right in front of her. They had programmed it to drive for too long.
They needed to cut down the amount of time the motor ran.
These Essex Elementary School first-graders are engineers — with Legos.
Earlier this week, the school's technology teacher, Jeff Bodmer-Turner, wheeled one of the school's mobile computer labs, stocked with laptops and Lego Robotic cars, into teacher Elizabeth Kelley's classroom. All of these materials were purchased with grant money from the Spaulding Trust.
Bodmer-Turner has been using the Legos and laptops to teach the engineering design process to the school's first- and second-graders.
The students use a picture-based programming software, Robolab, to program Lego cars to perform a series of tasks.
"The technology is really secondary to the main purpose of the unit, which is for them to begin to understand that there's a cycle to design that occurs in science and engineering," said Bodmer-Turner.
"Think, plan, build, test, observe, think," the class said in unison, reviewing the engineering process before Bodmer-Turner handed out the laptops. The process is one of trial and error: making a design, testing it, and figuring out how to make it better.
Bodmer-Turner said the unit began in December, when students learned how to make strong shapes out of Legos. They built a wall, a "mouse house" and a chair. They tested the strength of their designs by dropping them from waist-height.
After using Kelley's computer and projector screen to show the students how to get started, the students broke in to pairs of two; collected the laptops, cars, and transponders; and got to work completing the three tasks.
Boucher and O'Connell sped through the first two challenges:
1. Making the car drive forward for four seconds and stop.
2. Making the drive forward for four seconds, stop and drive backwards for two seconds.
Finally, they had to make the car drive for eight feet before stopping. A more difficult task because the cars can only programmed to drive for a certain time, not distance.
The girls manipulated the software, changing the time the motors would run for. Then they sent their new program to the car.
The cars run using microcomputers and the programs are sent to them remotely from a transponder plugged into the computer's USB port using ultraviolet light.
"They're already very savvy about this," said Bodmer-Turner.
The girls brought the car over to a designated "test track" on the floor and Boucher pressed "run." The car sped past O'Connell, and Bodmer-Turner grabbed it, wheels still spinning.
"Which challenge are you working on?" he asked. The girls told him, and he said to cut the time down a lot.
They adjusted the program. The car stopped too short, and Bodmer-Turner told the class they only had time for one more test.
Boucher and O'Connell changed their design one last time and brought it back to the test area.
Boucher pressed the green button and the car sped towards O'Connell, no sign of stopping. She stood up, and as she grabbed the car passing beneath her it stopped.
"We got so close," O'Connell said.
Bodmer-Turner said the Lego cars bring a much-needed engineering course to a school that already has strong physical and social science bases.
O'Connell, however, said she just likes it for another reason — "because it's so fun" she said.
Robert Cann can be reached at gt_reporter@gloucestertimes.com
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