Kennedy students study automation, robotics

by Cori Hilsgen

news@thenewsleaders.com

Seventy-eight Kennedy Community School sixth-grade students recently spent a semester studying automation and robotics with teacher John O’Reilly.

O’Reilly said they started the year exploring what engineering is and then students researched and presented on an engineering field they were interested in.

“Many found information on careers they had no idea existed,” O’Reilly said.

Students learned about the design process and how to define problems, brainstorm solutions, prototype various mechanisms to solve the problem and then present their solutions.

O’Reilly said this really highlights problem-solving skills they will use no matter what career they go into later, but is particularly useful for science, technology, engineering and math.

The robotics portion of the class involved students studying, designing and building robots using various mechanisms, gears and motors, while learning how to write code (using c programming) to control the robots.

“Being a project-based class, students really learn in a way that is more authentic,” O’Reilly said. “They are forced to work together in teams, manage their time to complete their project on time and learn by making mistakes.”

Toward the end of the class, students participated in a robotics competition. The students played the roles of mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and programming engineers to design a robot to move balls over, under and into various obstacles.

O’Reilly said it was a fun way to have students work together in teams to put what they learned into practice.

The conclusion of the class involved students making videos which documented what they had learned in the class. The videos highlighted how they used the design process, how they wrote their programs, how they took on the roles of different types of engineers and times they really had to use their problem-solving skills to fix their robots, when they didn’t work as the students had wanted them to.

When reflecting on the class and project, sixth-grade student Jackson G. said he learned he and his classmates had to be good at problem solving to know what went wrong with their robots. They really had to think about a plan and work together with their team in order to win.

Sixth-grade student Evan R. said he thought programming was easier than he thought it would be.

The final robotic competition and video took about four weeks for students to complete.

This was O’Reilly’s first year teaching the class at Kennedy. He has a background in science, but said he didn’t do much with engineering until he became a teacher.

O’Reilly previously worked in a project-based school in San Diego, where he taught environmental science and partnered with the engineering teacher to develop aquatic robots to conduct environmental water-sampling around San Diego.

“That was my first exposure,” O’Reilly said. “I taught the science behind the sampling-and-processing techniques and the other teacher taught the robotics, so I got to be a student too.”

O’Reilly also later participated in training with a Project Lead-the-Way class on automation and robotics.