Apollo’s Vision Club

About the Program

The Apollo's Vision Club, Inc. robotics program is an after-school program currently partnered with the Napa Street Elementary School in Northridge, California. The current participants of this program, who are in the 4th and 5th grades, meet for three hours on Saturdays during a twelve-week-session. The young participants co-operate with adult mentors in creating robots according to their own interest. The participants start by using pre-existing instructions for building their robot, followed by a programming and investigation session that defines the blueprints for the robot's performance. As their expertise increases, youth get involved with designing the robot using a Lego Computer Aided Design (CAD) application--creating detailed building instructions from the CAD design, and completing the programming and investigative tasks that are necessary for its performance.

The Goals of This Program:

• To encourage young people to become designers and creators of computer-based products, such as robots, and help them experience the process from beginning to end
• To use alternative learning environments to encourage students to build robots that uncover their interest; improve confidence in math, science, and technology; and build leadership
• To encourage young people to use novice expert tools that can bridge the gap between "real work" applications and school work

Program Activities:

Participants of this program build their robots using the Lego©Mindstorms sets, which includes the programmable brick (RCX), that was developed by MIT. The participants use gears, motors, and Lego parts to build a robot. Training starts by introducing basic concepts of building and commences with the introduction of RoboLab©, a graphic-based programming environment, that enables youth to manipulate motors, lights and sensors in an attempt to help the robot perform a task. Next, the program is transferred from the computer to the brick, via a special tower that uses infrared communication to accomplish this task. The entire building process is monitored by a database that helps youth record their project in the database, access building instructions, store their programming solutions, and write investigation notes as they encounter new problems and make new discoveries.

Funding Sources:

• High Priority Schools Grant & Title 1 schools funding from the participating school
• Other support expected from corporate sponsors, foundations, and individual sponsors

Challenges & Strategies

Challenges:

• Increasing awareness of the after-school robotics program among teachers
  "Our goal is to have the teachers of Napa Street Elementary recognize the benefits of the robotics program to improve the participants' comprehension of science and technology. With this goal in mind, we intend to co-operate with Napa teachers on building scenarios for incorporating robotics in the curriculum. This effort is geared to bridge the gap between the learning that happens in schools and the requirements of a 21st century workplace."
• Obtaining sustainable funding
  "We are looking for funding to help us continue this novel program that can define the chances of our underserved student population to help our society overcome a looming shortage of science and technology worker power."

Strategies:

• Start by creating environments that encourage young people to become designers and creators of computer-based products. more



• Foster the notion of afterschool programs as alternative learning. Strive to transform traditional educational environments to be learner-centered and explorative. more
• Put learners in charge of their own learning by encouraging learning through design experiences supported by the study of previously-developed projects. more
• The entire robotics experience is managed by a database, specifically designed to guide youth through the four phases of the robotic creation process and includes the following categories: Design, Construction, Programming, and Investigation. more
• Integrate the math and science Content Standards that the State Department of Education provides. more
• Work with experienced older youth of the schools in your neighborhood. Also, encourage capable participants to serve as mentors. more
• Evaluate youth outcomes on performance. Activities should be geared toward robotics creations that are expected to perform in a real-life competition scenario. more

Strategies in detail:

• Start by creating environments that encourage young people to become designers and creators of computer-based products.

  "Young people are more likely to feel a sense of personal investment if they engage in inquiry-rich experiences through the design and creation of computer-based products. The best way to prepare yourself for this task is to go through the same design and building experiences as you plan for your participants. Spend a little bit of individual money buying the Lego©Mindstorms set. A Lego©Mindstorms set includes 1 programmable brick, 700 pieces of Lego, a Constructopedia (building instructions), and touch and light sensors. This is exactly what I did as the developer of this robotics program. I had never built robots before I implemented this program. In order to acquaint myself with it, I just sat at home and built as many robots as I could, using a rich resource of robotics instruction books for guidance. There are many books about robotics that you can refer to — see the list in the resource section."

• Foster the notion of after-school programs as alternative learning. Strive to transform traditional educational environments to be learner-centered and explorative

  "Our program was inspired by Dr. Seymour Papert and David Cavallo's article "A Call for Action - The Learning Hub," which is a call for action written for activists and thinkers who try to build visions of what learning could become in a globally connected world. Apollo's Vision Computer Clubs, Inc. was created as a response to this call for action and set its goals: to provide schools and educators with cutting-edge educational models for the use of technology as tools for design, and to encourage new thinking about learning and the development of new visions for learning. It is challenging for teachers to investigate alternative learning in the current educational settings. However, after-school settings allow youth to learn through design, invention, and self-discovery. The alternative learning environment, or in our case "The Computer Clubhouse", is a place where youth come for a few hours to see, learn, and participate in intellectually rich, future-oriented activities. The goals of this "Local Learning Hub", are best described by Dr. Papert and Dr. Cavallo in the above mentioned article. The essential goal in each case is to conduct a cutting-edge educational pilot as a basis for the development and public dissemination of ideas about learning. In particular the public, as well as communities of professional educators, need to be introduced to visions of learning quite different from the structures of traditional schools. As a foundation for this shift in mindset they need to understand how digital technology can be used as a constructionist as well as an informational medium and how the acquisition of technological fluency goes far beyond learning to use office software."

Back to Strategies

• Put learners in charge of their own learning by encouraging learning through design experiences supported by the study of previously-developed projects.

  "In any design situation, it is often a good strategy to start by looking at previously-developed projects, then to consider variations on these model projects. For this reason, it is important for designers to have easy access to good sample projects. The role of the database is to serve as a rich resource of previously developed projects and direct the participants to explore steps needed for the completion of their projects in non-linear ways. The participants record what they learn, how they discover, and how they solve a particular problem. As the participants log their learning experiences into the database, the database becomes a huge set of learning resources where they can see the past or current participants' trial and errors, and share their discoveries with others. This database provides clear instructions that are user-friendly, and allows the participants a high level of independence. This is an effective tool that enhances the notion of learner-centered and self-directed learning in the program from beginning to end."

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Back to Strategies
• The entire robotics experience is managed by a database, specifically designed to guide youth through the four phases of the robotic creation process and includes the following categories: Design, Construction, Programming, and Investigation.

  Click the image to enlarge.
  

  1) Phase 1 Design: The participants start building their robot virtually on the screen using a Computer Aided Design (CAD) program, which is shareware called MLCAD. This program consists of all the basic parts of Lego available in the LEGO©Mindstorms sets. The participants use their full imagination and previously acquired knowledge, in initially designing overall structures of their conceptual robots simply by dragging and dropping.

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  2) Phase 2 Building: After they finish designing in phase 1, the participants use another shareware application program that turns the phase 1 design into detailed building instructions. The participants view these building instructions using a web browser, which tells them exactly what types of parts are needed and where to put them.

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  3) Phase 3 Programming: Instead of using a difficult C++ language, the Robolab® programming environment provides simple graphic-based icons that are more suitable for young participants. Some youth learn how to program quickly and advance to much higher levels. This programming phase is a discovery process where the participants program their robots, test how they work, and encounter various problems.

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  4) Phase 4 Investigation: The investigation phase consists of a general description of the robotic creation and a series of investigation notes which consist of problem investigations, discoveries, connections to relevant resources, and a link to the underlying concepts embedded in their creations, categorized by subject.

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Back to Strategies
• Integrate the math and science Content Standards that the State Department of Education provides.

  "For an example of how the math and science standards are applied, we need to look at different problem-solving opportunities that arise as the participants perform their robotic construction tasks. The participants calculate gear ratios and understand the mathematical relationships of various gear arrangements. With this understanding, they can apply gearing-up and gearing-down to influence speed and torque. This also requires basic concepts of physical science in order to understand power and speed. Those experiences are feasible because each step of robot construction including learning phases is created based on our robotics curriculum, which is well organized to enhance the informal math and science learning based on Content Standards."

• Work with experienced older youth of the schools in your neighborhood. Also, encourage capable participants to serve as mentors.

  "Even though some of our staff members have background in engineering and programming, other educators in our program include youth mentors from other robotics programs in local high schools. These high-school mentors have experience in building robots from their own robotics program at their schools. Also, you can turn your young participants into educators in your program. While adults handle the program structure, youth need chances to lead the program and listen to youth mentors and other participants collaboratively working in groups. You can also use some participants, who understand the concepts and build robots faster than others as program assistants. These youth become leaders in spreading their learning experiences further."

• Evaluate youth outcomes on performance. Activities should be geared toward robotics creations that are expected to perform in a real-life competition scenario.

  "The construction of robots should be done with a performance goal in mind. Some of these goals may include having a robot climb an incline, traverse a maze with speed, or stick to a specified route. A description of performance requirements and having youth compete on whose robot can best accomplish it, turns the entire exercise into a realistic learning experience peppered with competition excitement. As a final assignment, hold a robot competition festival that provides the participants with a chance to present their robots in front of people and learn the optimal construction and programming condition while racing their robots with others. The race becomes a catalyst for the next robotics session, which encourages them to reach their goals a lot faster, to increasingly delve into the underlying concepts embedded in their creations, and to have better understanding of math, science, and technology. Youth performance should be measured based on their abilities as indicated in their projects. Skills utilized by projects should be linked to their underlying concepts as they are taught in the traditional classroom. Those concepts should be tested for indications of improvement of participants' understanding. Their ability to use previously acquired information to create independently driven original creations should be gauged as well."