If
you think eighth graders are too old to be playing with Legos, don’t
tell the students in the FIRST Lego League chapters hosted around Moore
County School
For a group
of girls at Elise Middle School, Legos open up a world of imagination
that bears a strong resemblance to the real one. Through
easily-assembled blocks, they create cities in miniature. In those
cities, they experiment with architecture, infrastructure and robots to
devise possible solutions to real-life issues of development.
But
building robots was only half of this year’s First Lego League
Challenge. For the second component, the Innovation Project, the “Elise
Elite” looked within the walls of their school to find a problem to
solve.
“After
going over a couple of different ideas, we wanted to do something that
would be helpful close to home for us,” said Charley Ritter, an eighth
grader at Elise. “So we decided to do a project for the visually
impaired, to make it easier to navigate around school.”
The
resulting computer application, which they call “EarSight,” won the
Innovative Solution Award at the N.C. First Lego League State
Championship tournament at N.C. A&T State University on Jan. 19.
Elise’s team qualified for the state tournament in a regional event at
Harnett Central Middle School in November.Founded in 1989
to foster students’ interest in technology, the FIRST nonprofit now has
chapters worldwide. Carrie Robledo, who works as a digital integration
facilitator at Elise, advises the team that also includes Kayden Beard,
Jordan Brower, Leslie Catalan Avila, Ashona Ingram, Lana Marley, Cara
Rouse and Adriana Sexton.
FIRST
issued this year’s challenge in early August, so the group started
meeting to devise their project before the beginning of the school year.
In the Innovation Project, they were charged with identifying a problem
with a building or public utility in the community and designing a
solution.
The Robbins town
water system was one early idea, and the girls discussed the potential
for a drone-powered package delivery system. But common sense indicated
that technology might not hold improvements to every process.
“We
thought about the suggestion of a drone delivery service, but as a
group, we couldn’t wrap our heads around it,” Charley added. “Maybe it
isn’t a good idea to have people’s medicines flying over rural parks.”ably going to shoot that drone down,” Kayden lamented.
Ultimately,
they found a cause right under their noses in Canaan Smith, a
visually-impaired seventh grader at Elise. Their goal was to help him be
more self-sufficient around school with a system to help him check his
location on campus.
That might
seem like a daunting task for a group of middle school students, but
most of the team have participated in robotics and computing clubs at
Robbins Elementary for several years. So they knew what existing
technology they could put to use.
Canaan’s
everyday school iPad is equipped with a Braille display … and now,
thanks to the Elise Elite, there’s an app especially for him.
The
team set up QR codes on the door of every room at Elise linking to a
video that explains what room it is, who teaches there and what subject.
“Another
idea for the app, if we were to continue working on it in the future,
was to use an earpiece and a touch sensor so that one tap will tell you
where you are, two taps will repeat the directions, three taps will
activate a microphone to listen for a command and holding it will get
you extra help like notifying a nearby teacher,” said Charley.
“We
want to incorporate everything to the point where it could hold a
day-to-day schedule and not only tell you where you are but kind of lead
you to the class you’re supposed to go to.”
Like
most STEM projects, FIRST Lego League gets students to unleash their
creativity using science, engineering and math to solve open-ended
problems. The program emphasizes what it calls its six core values:
discovery, innovation, impact, teamwork, inclusion and fun. With no
adult assistance permitted in competition, teams at the state tournament
from Moore County Schools pitched in to make sure that every
presentation went smoothly.
“It
wasn’t just our seven-person team. Highfalls has a team, and when we
couldn’t figure something out on our robot, they were very helpful,”
said Cara..."
Read the full story at its source: https://www.thepilot.com/news/using-legos-middle-schoolers-are-solving-practical-problems/article_53e85e38-43a8-11ea-8394-373bdd9391e1.html
Read the full story at its source: https://www.thepilot.com/news/using-legos-middle-schoolers-are-solving-practical-problems/article_53e85e38-43a8-11ea-8394-373bdd9391e1.html
