Weekly Activities
Based on project learning the robotic need to fully understand before we can go further to complete the combination of the LEGO parts.
WEEK 1
Robotic Club: Enhancing Students’ Creativity in Designing Functional Robot in Primary Years.
Robocup
3PATROL
Bachelor of Education
Institut Perguruan Teknik, Kuala Lumpur/Queensland University of Technology
Introduction
To transform the educational system will entail changing the culture and practices of Malaysia’s primary and secondary schools, moving away from memory-based learning designed for the average student to an education that stimulates thinking, creativity, and caring in all students, caters to individual abilities and learning styles, and is based on more equitable access. It will require students to exercise greater responsibility for their own education, while seeking more active participation by parents and the wider community (MOE, 1997). In this millennium, students and teachers need to keep abreast with advancement in ICT as well as being competitive and relevant (Noraini, 2006). Jacobsen & Jadud (2005) believe students should have fun exploring authentic tasks in constructive ways.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to know the effective or the enhancement of students’ creativity in designing functional robot in primary years through:
- Lessons learned in robotic club instructed by the teacher.
- Learning motivation and experiences while facing the challenges of constructing functional robot.
Limitation
This project is consist of issues of robotic in schools in Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia but mainly, any kind of interviews and data collection were from Malaysia, which a school that we pick from a list given by lecturer.
Discussion
After a long research from journals from Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia; and some interview from a school in Malaysia, I found that most of the schools in those three countries have their own Robotic Club. As cited in National Robotic Competition (2008), robotic education help students build a solid foundation in Mathematics, Science, Technology, Design, and ICT through hands-on experience or investigation. It also train students to work together to solve challenging problems in a spirit of co-operation and collaboration. Through robotic club, it enable students to develop logical and systematic thinking as they plan and implement programmes through the programming of robots. In enactive the students’ skills in robotic, a competition is held. Here, we can see whether they enhance yet their creativity in problem solving and did their awareness rise in many of the possible ways of arriving at a desired outcome. In Australia, robotic education is not part of any set of curriculum. Most schools that use robots do so in after school ‘robot clubs’ and they compete in competitions like RoboCup Junior. This is heavily dominated by Lego robots. According to Madsen (2008) in her Chatswood Public School, the Robotics Club is open to students with an interest in technology, teamwork and dancing. This club is open to only Year 5 and Year 6 students and will meet at lunch time during Terms 2 and 3. Their goal is to send their teams to enter the Robocup dance category held at the UNSW squarehouse. Differ with this school in Singapore, Temasek Primary School take a serious matter to this competition stuff as their club have sent and won several grand prizes in competitions such as National Junior Robotics Competition 2002 and East Zone Robotics Challenge 2003. Concordance to their club’s mission – to visualize, design, build and program a robot to meet various, simulated real-life challenges and innovatively apply creativity and problem solving skills to solutions and exploring multiple intelligences and develop skills required later on in adult working life at the same time. In other hands, in Malaysia, the Robotic Club in S.K. La Salle, Petaling Jaya was establishing in 2007 in purpose to find students with talent in robotic. A selection from hundreds of students was made and 30 students were made in this selection which consists of Year 4 and Year 5 students. In this time being, before they went for Year 6 (the year when they will compete); they will be train by their teacher to design functional robots through the instruction from LEGO supplied by Sasbadi, the main organizer of National Robotics Competition. The teacher will teach the students on how to construct robot with basic functions like moving forward or backward and picking up things. Unfortunately, the teacher was lack in robotic training and they have to struggle to explore the product given by theirselves. In this case, the students may be lack of training too but fortunately, the students in this club do their own research in internet. This shows that they have the initiative to enhance their skills because of the lacks in their club. According to one of the students in that club, he, himself, has the willing and interest to join the club after he watched a movie called Transformers. He is willingly made his own reference through books, internet, and television so that he can sharpen his skill. He also applied the learning in club at home. The other student said that it is fun to join and learn in this club. He wants to be a programmer in the future and for the sake of these children’s ambition, the teacher is hoping for any helps for his club finance.
Conclusion
The problem of building an autonomous robot engages the issues of real-world problem solving, multidisciplinary teamwork, and creative and critical thinking. Building an actual robot rather than programming a simulation, requires students to immediately confront the nonideality of real-world devices, and provides immediate feedback about the success or failure of their ideas. By having students work in teams,(which is in club as well) the course encourages them to pool their individual expertise, allows them to specialize in specific subtasks, and gives them experience in developing the interpersonal skills to articulate and defend their views, but ultimately reach a consensus that is best for the group as a whole. In conclusion, robotics education should be considered on a broader goal, not just limited to a “one-season-competition-occasion” (Henry Goh & Baharuddin Aris, 2007).
Whatever it is, in all issues raised among Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia in here, the Robotic Club was establish in school because on one main purpose – to enhance students’ creativity in designing functional robot.
week 2
Junior Robocup
Problems Statement
- enter the ball into the goalpost
Objective:
by the ent of the lesson, students should be able to make the robot:-
- kick the ball into the goalpost
- move the robot according to the instruction/lane given
- stop when the robot see the ball
- find the suitable angel to kick so that the ball will enter to the goalpost
- goal the ball at least 4 from 6 balls provided
Tools:-
- LEGO’s MINDSTORM
- light sensor
- NXT (main body/block)
- MINDSTORM software
- mini field
Procedure
1. The making of the software
- The making of the field
- The making of the robot.
Step 1:
Make the kicker
1 x Tacho motor
4 x 15M beam
1 x light sensor
3 x cross Axle 7M
2 x big gear
1 x small gear
Some connector with fraction
Some bush for cross axle
Some angle 7M and 5M Beam
Some 3M beam
Step 2:
Right tire
1 x big tire
1 x cross axle
Some angle 7M and 5M
1 x 15M Beam
Some 3M Beam
Step 3:
Left tire
1 x big tire
1 x cross axle
Some angle 7M and 5M
1 x 15M Beam
Some 3M beam
Step 4:
NXT body
1 x light sensor
3 x angle 3M
2 x angle 2M
Some 3M beam
Step 5:
Join all the parts to the NXT
Step 6:
Download the program to the NXT and run it.
WEEK 3
Constructions of mini beckham
Idea is something that inside your brains and to make your idea valuable we must transfer it to the real things. In this robotics project, we have created a model of a crane. The design I get it not from any resources. It comes from our group discussion and idea how to make a model to kick a ball. Our idea was very authentic and originally from our group. The task is to design the robot to kick a ball to the target so that we need to build a robot to kick a ball.
we decide that we need to kick the ball from front of the robot not from the side. We make some renovation to the robot
after discussion among our group we need more intervention to our robot it means that make it more nice and good so that last our final idea for our design of the robot
WEEK 4
Enhancement
The project maybe simple but it can be modifying to improve the outcome with adding more robots NXT into the project. We can create many lanes to make it become challenging and also change the lane’s direction after bounce the ball. The bigger field can involve more participant of robot and its will should become more fun and happening game of our Mini Beckham’s project.
