Left Lane Ends

SETUP:

For this activity, you will need to setup a play board (an arena) with three (3) to five (5) spam cans placed a little behind the line (dead zone).

The arena surface is a 4′ x 4′ white Melamine (Mel-am-in-ae) board which can be purchased at your local hardware store. It typically comes in a 4′ x 8′ sheet, which the hardware store may cut in half for you. The black dead zone is made with ‘Avery 4Year Vinyl’ and can be ordered from Sign Warehouse in Sherman, TX (http://www.signwarehouse.com ** A direct link to the black vinyl is: http://www.signwarehouse.com/VAVA4O2410-p-VA4-2410-090-O.html). You can also use two strips of electrical tape to mark the 8″ dead zone, or get full sheet label paper and print an 8″ path with a laser printer.

ACTIVITY OVERVIEW:
Once you have setup your sample arena and placed the debris as shown, program your robot to push all of the spam cans across the line. Do not worry about pushing the spam cans over to your opponents side, just push them so that they are all the way across your line.

ACTIVITY::PATTERN FOCUS:

How do patterns help you program your robotics? Many times, you will want to develop a pattern that you can loop over-and-over so that you only create a small piece of programming that you repeat. This is easier to program, and thinking in patterns can make your robot’s performance more effective. So, where do you start?

1. Physically take your robot (or any model of a robot will work) and move it with your hand in the pattern that you want it to do on the play board. Talk through the steps as you move your robot (forward, back, right, forward, left, forward, back, right, forward…). These movements must be programmable in RoboLab (or whatever you are using to program).
2. Write down the pattern (represent the movements/actions with letters).
3. Block out the piece that is repeated.
4. Look at how you can loop that pattern in your programming.

Look at this video that shows a team going through this process :

What pattern would THIS program below make your robot perform?

ACTIVITY::PATTERN REVISION

Once you develop a pattern, the next step is to watch your robot perform the pattern and look for ways to improve it. Watch this student () look at his robot’s pattern.

• How is he looking at making changes in his pattern?
• What needs improvement in his robot’s pattern?
• What changes would you make to the pattern his robot is performing?

Now, watch the changes he made () to his robot’s pattern to improve how it performed.

JOURNALING:

Journaling is the most important part of what you do with your team! Use these prompts to add to your team journal:

1. What is more important? Rescuing survivors or clearing debris? Which one should our team focus on first? Why? Should our team try to do one or both? What we think other teams will do? How can we best prepare for what other teams will be doing?
2. What patterns does our robot need to do in order to clear debris?
3. What patterns does our robot need to do in order to rescue survivors?
4. What new programming concepts did I learn?
5. How can we build our robot or change its construction to make it more efficient?

NEXT STEPS:

• Make your robot faster at clearing debris - how can you program differently to do this and how can you build it differently to do this?
• Develop a second pattern that is different from your first one - test each one five (5) times. Which one is better? Which one is faster? Which one is more accurate?

Don’t you think we have ENOUGH problems in education as it is? Our textbook companies don’t, and I doubt they care. This isn’t news to me - I’ve never had a positive view on these political and financial powerhouses. BUT. I’m reviewing different options tonight for our upcoming Math adoption and just had to share my experiences. I’ll share it in three stories:

Story number one (1):

I started my merri-go-round sampling with a presentation by McDougal Littell. This was what you might consider a standard sales pitch, one that wasn’t super flashy but was fairly well put together. The pace of the presentation didn’t make we dizzy and I had time to reflect on what the company was offering. As the session progressed (I walked in a little late), my eyes began to open. I began realizing that textbook companies have started to ‘get it’. They are now at a point where they ‘get’ what technology can do for them! (beware - the next sentence is long and meant to be said in one breath) It can SELL more books and grab a little bit more out of that state pot of money that is just sitting there waiting for the next sucker of a district to sign the papers which allow the big corporations (that have very little real interest in the state of our education system!!!!!!) to snatch a little more money because they convinced a teacher that THEY, lowly little teacher that they may be, will get a PEN DRIVE if they vote for this adoption. And not ONLY do they get a pen drive, but EVERY campus will receive software that will PRINT A TEST ON PAPER and a scanner that will scan those paper tests and GRADE THEM FOR THE TEACHERS! THIS, my friends, is the point where I began biting a hole in my right cheek, and not just one of those little nibble, nibble holes… a FULL OUT hole in my right cheek! While I understand that this might be really beneficial to some districts out there, I truly believe that benefiting education is not the purpose of putting these gimmicks into the textbook packages. The content is the same ‘ole stuff - except it now has TAKS questions on each page so that we can further bore our students even faster than we do now.

Story number two (2):

I swear, if I had any used cars to sell or needed a salesman for my crappy used car lot down the street - I would have IMMEDIATELY hired this guy to do the job. I popped into a packed room of math teachers who were anxiously waiting for the next words to come out of this Prentice Hall’s presenters mouth. In fact, I didn’t really know if I was in a Prentice Hall presentation as I saw eInstruction clickers distributed around the room. I seriously thought I stepped into a third party sales pitch on using these units in a math classroom. No worries, though, folks - it was definitely full out Prentice Hall. Keeping in mind that I had already had my eyes opened to the fact that these companies are simply using technology to sell their product, I thought I was ready for mentally handling the next presentation without delving down into my inner sanctum of sarcasm. Then my shoulders slumped and my face shrunk into a dis-connected, furrowed brow mask. You see, not only was this presenter pushing the gimmicks, but his ENTIRE presentation was about the gimmicks! He didn’t delve into the textbook (aside from the quick excerpts flashed across the screen) and said NOTHING (I think I broke a few keys typing that word) about the actual content of the material. WHAT?!?! Teachers that I KNOW do not use technology on anywhere CLOSE to a regular basis were CHEERING for the clickers that did the assessments for them! We have MORE THAN ONE SYSTEM IN OUR DISTRICT THAT AUTOMATICALLY GRADES ASSESSMENTS (have had for more than 5 years now) AND THESE PEOPLE WERE CHEERING! Oh, and it was all aligned to TAKS … how on earth could I leave that part out? I couldn’t resist jotting down a quote: ‘You don’t ever have to worry about going a day without the students practicing for TAKS.’ Oh thank the supreme diety for THAT one. It was in this session that I realized the next point I would learn tonight: We’re in trouble. We’re in trouble because the textbook companies are demonstrating to the political powers in Austin that they are using technology to do worksheets and TAKS practice on line - and Austin WILL fall for it. We are further in trouble because our teachers will adopt this company’s book (I can almost guarantee it… I’ll post when they do) and think that this kind of gimmick technology integration is the end-all/be-all. Ouch. I may just go grab one of those crappy used cars off my lot down the street and drive it off a cliff - that is if Mr. Prentice Hall hasn’t sold it first.

Story number three (3): 

By this time I’m beat down. I have a hole bitten in both my right and left cheeks, have pondered driving a car off of a cliff and look … well, just plain haggard. Surely, this last publisher will have SOMEthing reasonable to offer - right? The last spin on my merri-go-round adventure is with Thomson Learning. I should probably preface this by saying how much I do NOT like sales people. Too often, they do not know their product, are boring to listen to, don’t even have a product worth listening to, aren’t engaging and care only about the sale. Unfortunately, this guy did NOT know his product, was boring as heck to listen to (READ THE DANG SLIDE SHOW!), couldn’t show that his product was worthy, had a non-engaging PowerPoint with mainly a white background and a bunch of black text in Arial font, and … well, I didn’t stick around long enough to hear if he only cared about the sale. My job, as I am in Instructional Technology, was to find out the positives and negatives about the technology offered components from each company. You know, does the company offer an electronic copy of their book? Nope. Ok then, I’ll check THAT off my list. Does the company offer an assessment bank? Well, I can print Word .doc’s with Thompson to hand out to my kids. Yeah, right. Check. Does the company offer engaging content? Their included PowerPoint’s used a standard Microsoft Template. *sigh*. And, check. The third lesson of the night? Once you get your questions answered, don’t give your time to someone who isn’t on a path to help kids in your district learn in a more effective and engaging way. I was really a bit baffled - how does this big company not ‘get it’ (you know, get the fact that technology gimmicks can sell their product)?? Thompson may not have turned me off in the same way that the other two did, but they came nowhere close to impressing me with what they offered.

So, my venting comes to a close. To recap, I learned three very important things tonight:

1. Big textbook companies are finally ‘getting it’ in regards to technology. They ‘get’ gimmicky technology add-ons will woo teachers and sell more of their product
2. Big textbook companies are fooling the political powers that they are leading the path in technology integration … with gimmicky technology add-ons.
3. The ones that don’t ‘get it’ yet are nowhere close to where we need them to be and will sooner or later get on board with the rest of the technology gimmick train.

I’ve never seen a textbook presentation that focused solely around the technology components that it offered and not around the content of the book. These companies have too much control in the content that our kids are fed to be scamming teachers into thinking they are doing the right thing with technology integration into their classrooms.

And folks, that gimmicky integration ain’t nowhere close to where the Left Lane Ends.

So I am ‘using’ my blog. The annual TCEA robotics competition is approaching and I want to provide some assistance to teams this year as they prepare for the competition. You’ll see some robotics related posts, as well as a guest author from now through February. Maybe this will get me back to writing after my hiatus…. hmmm… maybe…

Looking for a place to start with building your robot? Let’s begin with the basics:

First, build a robot that:

• can make sharp/accurate turns - left and right (and how can you test this??)
• has a light sensor that is mounted close to the floor and at the front of the robot
• Has a touch sensor mounted on the front (you’ll probably want to have some kind of activator instead of putting a touch sensor out front all by its lonesome)

HINT: If you have trouble getting started on the building task, you can build the model on page 16 of the Lego Constructopedia (it is the second model after the very basic first one). Keep in mind that this robot has different build-out ‘options’. You can build it with treads or tires and even build different sensor modules for the front of it. You’ll have to do your own tweaking to get a touch AND a light sensor on the front.

HINT: If you have your own robot design, look in the back of your Contructopedia for different ways to add on light sensors and touch sensors.

HINT: Looking for a new design? Try building this tank bot. OR, take a look at THIS site with a lot of new/different robot designs!

HINT: If you have more than one kit in your group, build two different robots to compare how they function (for example, one with treads and one with wheels).

Finally, and this is VERY VERY IMPORTANT, start a team journal with a section for building, programming and brainstorming. Take time to stop and reflect after doing small steps. Write down descriptions and/or drawings about what you build and program so that you can reference what you have done in the past. Update your team journal as often as possible - use it as a working document so you do not forget your ideas. Make predictions and write down theories that you think might work!

So, you have decided to participate in the 2007 TCEA Robotics competition? Congratulations, and welcome!

I want to take a few lines of text here to explain the purpose behind this year’s competition and throw out a few notes about its development. You may have noticed that we are repeating the same competition (for the most part) from last year. There are several main reasons for doing this:

1. We want to see a higher level of play at the state level - this year, teams will have more experience and have had a longer time to think about solving the competition.
2. We wanted to refine rules we had experience with to streamline how the competition is carried out. (In other words, improve on what we learned from last year)
3. We want to release the 2008 competition information AT the February 2007 competition in order to give teams a full year to prepare for a new challenge.

With that in mind, I would like to review what is different in this year’s rules:

• Cleaner play board: we felt that there was just a little too much ’stuff’ on the play board last year. So, we have: 1) reduced the number of debris; and 2) reduced the number of lines on the board. Less debris makes for easier navigation (while still keeping the level of challenge) and creating a solid, 8″ dead zone reduces confusion on the part of the robots.
• More lenient DQ rules: there were too many DQ’s last year, and that is just NO fun! So, we have made the DQ rules a little more lenient and added a penalty for those robots that cross the line. While we’ll be discussing how the DQ’s are assessed on the TCEA competition discussion forum, the basic premise will be:
• A robot that crosses into it’s opponents territory will receive a penalty. It is up the the judges on how many penalties to apply (for example, a robot that is twitching back and forth across their opponents line will not be assessed 30 penalties).
• A robot that alters the path or course of their opponent while on their opponents side will be DQ’d.
• A robot that alters the position of their opponents objects while on their opponents side will be DQ’d.
• Plain and simple, stay on your side!
• Easier tie breaker: Last year, it was ‘first rescue’. This year, it is ‘first contact’! Whoever touches a survivor first will receive the mark for breaking a tie. We had too many coin tosses last year, and this rule should help eliminate a large majority of those. How will YOU take this new rule into account to assure that YOU win in the event of a tie? Our judges will have to be on their toes to watch for first contact!

So, with all that in mind, it should be a great competition! It is imperative that students get on the TCEA message board, create an account and participate in the discussions from now until February. Also, keep an eye on this tag (TCEARobotics2007) as I continue to post team activities that will help prepare you for the 2007 TCEA State Robotics Competition!

Jerram Froese
TCEA Robotics Competition Coordinator