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Sumo Robots Learn to Write:

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Title: Sumo Robots Learn to Write:


1
Sumo Robots Learn to Write
  • Andrea C. Sledge, Central Washington University,
    Ellensburg, Washington, sledgea_at_cwu.edu
  • James Hendricks, Southridge High School,
    Kennewick, Washington, Hendji.KSDMAIL.KSD1_at_ksd.org

2
Project Sumo Robot
3
Why?
  • a high interest, high technology learning
    activity to high school students with career path
    interests in science and technology
  • a high interest, high technology leaning activity
    to be disseminated for replication
  • complex entry level skills and abilities
    presently used in the research and development
    industry

4
  • potential popularity of sumo robot competitions
    as sports in high school and
  • an enriched experience for a teacher intern in
    the use of educational technology and
    interdisciplinary team teaching.

5
Who?
  • Secondary school teachers in two courses, Senior
    Engineering Technology and Language Arts,
    designed the curriculum.
  • Seniors in these two courses
  • The teacher intern provided instructional support
    and delivery over the course of an academic year.
  • The university faculty supervised the teacher
    intern and collaboration with the classroom
    teachers through bi-monthly visits.

6
What do the students do?
  • complete a senior project for the Electrical
    Engineering course
  • build mini sumo robots from basic electronic
    components
  • program the robots and
  • compete against other schools in mini sumo robot
    competitions.
  • problem solve and troubleshoot to configure and
    design sumo robots for peak competitive
    performance and
  • build skills looked for in entry-level electrical
    engineers.

7
A mini sumo robot is
  • a small, autonomous, mobile robot with infrared
    sensors located on the bottom of the chassis
  • capable of traveling across a three-foot diameter
    circular arena called a dohyo (black surface
    with a 1 white perimeter
  • built from simple off-the-shelf kits to elaborate
    custom-built machines with enormous
    microprocessor power and high torque motors

8
What happens in a sumo robot match?
  • When infrared light from the sumo robot is
    reflected from the white line, the sumo robot
    receives an input signal.
  • The robots program will stop its drive wheel
    motors, back up, turn around, then travel forward
    again across the dohyo.
  • Random collisions occur between the robot
    opponents, which lead to pushing matches.
  • Eventually, one robot will push its opponent off
    the dohyo.

9
The PT3 grant funded
  • an interactive, computer assisted whiteboard for
    lesson presentation and idea development
  • portable USB-connected hard drives to store and
    transfer large volumes of student movie data
    between classrooms
  • basic electronic components for twenty mini sumo
    robot circuit fabrications
  • the manufacture of twenty printed circuit boards
    by a commercial supplier and
  • servomotors for twenty mini sumo robots and
  • a video camera.

10
The Engineering Technology Classroom
11
Students completed a series of integrated
assignments
  • detailed and individually written technical
    reports
  • CAD drawings using 3-D parametric modeling
    software
  • electronic schematic and printed circuit board
    development using industry standard software
  • a promotional movie to highlight their product a
    web site containing all aspects of their
    research and
  • a tournament between the secondary school
    students and engineers interested in robotics.

12
.
A panoramic photo of the sumo robot competition.
Photo by Gabe Guillen
13
In the Dohyo
14
  • The competing robots are placed on the arena.
  • The designers simultaneously pressed the sumo
    robot start buttons at the command of the
    referee. (The robots were preprogrammed to start
    five seconds after the button was pressed.)
  • When the robots began to move, music played over
    the loud speakers.
  • The robots started to travel across the 36-inch
    diameter, black arena with a white line painted
    around the perimeter.

15
  • The robots eventually collided, and began pushing
    each other. Sometimes they got tangled and
    appeared to perform a dance.
  • The referee had the authority to stop and restart
    the bout after 15 seconds of non-contact or
    entanglement.
  • Eventually, one robot pushed the other off the
    arena.

16
  • Robots advanced through the tournament chart for
    the final battle between two finalists.
  • The champion was determined after winning two out
    of three bouts. A team of secondary students won
    the tournament with their mini sumo robot named
    Shade.

17
Shade, the winning sumo robot. Shade was built
by a team of two students from the Science and
Technology Academy.
18
The Language Arts Classroom
19
  • The Science and Technology Academy is made up
    blocked classes with Language Arts and Science.
  • The Senior Language Arts class played a major
    role in the sumo robot project in developing the
    documentation of the student-created technology.

20
Types of Documentation
  • technical writing
  • creative writing
  • movie making
  • hypertext

21
Sumo Robots Learned to Write
  • a multimedia presentation of research
    (information collection, organization, and
    analysis)
  • a parts list that included a technical
    description of each item
  • editing of the Sumo Challenge document for
    language mechanics
  • a lab book documenting the Sumo Robot design
    process
  • four technical reports
  • creative writing (short story, poem, jokes)

22
  • videos (instructional documentary, promotional
    music, trash talk)
  • a sumo robot web site
  • a business and marketing plan and public
    relations items (name, business cards,
    advertising flyer, video)
  • research reports and creative writing in global
    studies, science, math social studies, music
    and
  • multimedia presentations marketing student
    engineering skills.

23
The Year-Long Teacher Intern the 1st year
  • a Language Arts/Drama major
  • participation in the Sumo Robot Project through
    the academys Language Arts class (one period
    daily)
  • taught or co-taught the integrated assignments
    related to technology, such as the technical
    writing, poetry and movie creation during the
    quarter of her formal student teaching experience

24
Screen capture image of an initial web page for
the web site about sumo robots.
25
The University Faculty Member 1st year
  • liaised with the participating teachers
  • provided expertise in content area literacy
    (reading and writing to learn).
  • supervised of the teacher intern before and
    during the student teaching term
  • The faculty member observed the teacher intern
    every two weeks, on average.
  • She was videotaped on a regular basis in the
    Language Arts class.

26
STEPS
  • Supervision of the teacher intern
  • This software was used in the direct and
    video-taped observations of the intern.
  • Behaviors were recorded as timed or tallied data.
  • The software generated reports describing
    duration, frequency and sequence of behaviors.
  • These data and related reports became one of the
    bases for feedback to the interns.

27
The Collaboration Anomalies Challenges
28
  • The faculty members discipline was Literacy
    Education, with expertise in reading and writing
    in content fields.
  • The year-long intern was a Drama and English
    Language Arts major -- no Technology Education
    pre-service teachers could participate, given
    their course schedules.
  • The project was designed and scheduled for
    implementation prior to the high school joining
    the grant.

29
  • Inquiry learning was one of the instructional
    frameworks common to the Science and Technology
    Academy classes.
  • Science and Technology Academy teachers were
    well-versed in engineering and/or instructional
    technologies, with instructional technology
    already a part of their curriculum design.
  • The distance between the university and the
    project site

30
Outcomes
  • Curriculum Redesign Institutionalization of
    Technology Use
  • The students in the Science and Technology
    Academy had a pre-existing interest in and
    comfort with technology.

31
Advanced Technology Courtesy of PT3
  • In the Engineering Technology class, students
    learned
  • software programming
  • designing and using printed circuit boards
  • creating circuit schematics with Protel DXP
  • editing code for microprocessors

32
  • creating technical drawings with SolidWorks and
    AutoCad
  • creating animation movies with SolidWorks, Flash,
    Maya or other software
  • creating video short films related to the sumo
    robot design or performance and
  • designing web sites which incorporated the
    ProtelDXP schematic and circuit board designs,
    SolidWorks animations, and AutoCad and Rhino
    drawings.

33
In Senior Language Arts, students
  • enhanced their word processing and research
    skills
  • created QuickTime movies as part of the
    Senior-to-Senior and college applications
    projects.

34
The secondary teachers
  • gained access to additional technology resources
  • enhanced technologies that were part of their
    existing teaching practice microprocessor
    circuits for the sumo robots and provided small
    format videotaping equipment used for course
    video projects

35
New Teacher Technology Enhancement
  • The year-long intern participated in the Sumo
    Robot project through the Science and Technology
    Academy Senior English/Language Arts class
    (students designed the robots).
  • She learned, in support of the senior projects in
    the English course and the technical writing of
    the Sumo Robot project design and competition
  • how to use small format videotaping equipment
  • how to create QuickTime movies
  • The PT3 grant purchased a laptop computer for her
    use during the course of her participation in the
    grant.

36
Faculty Technology Enhancement
  • The faculty member learned
  • STEPS, the observational software used as part of
    the supervision of the teacher intern
  • how to use small format videotaping equipment
  • The PT3 grant provided a laptop computer on which
    this software resided.
  • An additional research project is planned using
    the STEPS software to record and analyze tutor
    behaviors in pre- and in-service literacy
    courses. She learned

37
Second-Year Accomplishments and Problems
38
At Southridge High School
  • The Sophomore Engineering Technology class was
    the new context for the design of sumo robots.
  • Students and staff continued to use the
    educational technology acquired with PT3 funding
    on a daily basis.
  • The PT3 project work gathered momentum with
    technology design updates and more dissemination
    resulting in more students and teachers involved
    from other schools.
  • Some seniors involved in the first year of
    Project Sumo Robot and for the Engineering
    Technology teacher had summer internships in
    industry.

39
At the University
  • No PT3 teacher intern involved in Project Sumo
    Robot
  • Efforts to link university courses with the
    Science and Technology Academy
  • The university faculty member spoke to the
    Science and Technology Academy teachers to
    identify learning activities for which they
    wanted development support.
  • The idea was that secondary teaching majors, as
    part of their course requirements for a reading
    in content fields course, would design activities
    that addressed these activities.

40
  • Sophomore and Senior Language Arts teachers
    identified several potential projects. (Only one
    of these related directly to Science and
    Technology The Perfect School, a
    collaboration between the Drafting and Sophomore
    Language Arts classes.).
  • As part of the requirements of the pre-service
    reading course, student teams designed
    Problem-Based Leaning (PBL) units.

41
  • Students were grouped by content areas that
    related to each of the teacher-identified
    projects and were assigned to a quarter-long
    project. They included aforementioned The
    Perfect School, college selection investigation,
    independent study of novels, conditioning
    programs for cheer squads, and enrichment English
    programs for gifted students.
  • At the end of the quarter, these PBL units were
    submitted to the teachers for their review and
    feedback.

42
Conclusions
  • Sumo robots learned to write as they learned
    to move.
  • High school engineering technology students
    learned design skills that were relevant to
    industry.
  • High school engineering students used writing for
    multiple career-related purposes.

43
  • Technology supported the acquisition of both sets
    of knowledge, skills, and abilities in authentic
    contexts.
  • The strategy of just-in-time technology training
    provided a teacher intern with competencies to
    carry into her own classroom, and provided the
    university faculty with a methodology to enhance
    supervision of preservice and inservice teachers
    in tutoring and classroom contexts.
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