ROBO-KIDS ; Thrill of High-Tech Learning Fuels Student Robotics Teams

By ANDREW LIGHTMAN

START YOUR ENGINES

When Tony DeFranzo’s students go to Florida this April, they are taking their 120-pound, remote-controlled killer robot.

Built with a car tire, it spins, rams and attacks, all to promote science and engineering.

DeFranzo, a Hanover High School physics teacher, coaches a dozen students in the school’s robotics club.

The four-year old group has met each Wednesday since September, gearing up for a trip to Miami to compete in Battlebots IQ, a program modeled after the robot-boxing reality TV show of the same name.

Schools across the South Shore have taken up robotics as a way to teach science and computer skills in a hands-on way. Students on the teams say they enjoy working together toward a common goal and using their minds in a creative way.

As high school robotics teams become more popular, some communities are setting up what amounts to feeder programs in the younger grades. In middle schools across Quincy, students meet after school to build robots with Lego blocks.

Nick Ahearn, a teacher at Sterling Middle School, has supervised the Lego robotics program in Quincy for the past six years and has watched it grow to include eight teams, each with about 12 students. With help from a federal grant, the program is free and open to all students, Ahearn said. Most sign up to get a head start on joining a competitive high school robotics team.

“What they’re learning is basic programming and computer programming,” Ahearn said, “and what they do is take this to the next level at the high school.”

The basic skills used by professional engineers are “masked in the excitement of the program,” he said.

“It’s hooked into what they’re doing now,” Ahearn said. “Really, it speaks to the technology generation that we’re in now.”

Building a foundation

That’s true in JeanMarie Iwanicki’s Norwell household. Iwanicki and her four daughters used to be strangers to the red, blue, yellow and white Lego blocks. They hadn’t even met the little guys with the removable hats, legs and torsos. Then her kids discovered at school that they could turn Legos into robots, capable of moving and picking up objects.

Now it’s all Legos, all the time.

The kids learn a lot, she said. Plus, she added, the program doesn’t reek of corporate promotion even though it does make the brand-name blocks incredibly appealing.

“I have four girls,” she said, “and (before this) we never played with Legos, ever.”

Iwanicki, a tax attorney, now volunteers in the Norwell schools, teaching kids during recess to make their building blocks move. She also coaches her daughter Illana, a second-grader, on Cole Elementary School’s Clippers.

The small team of students won a competition at North Quincy High School in December, earning the chance to compete against hundreds of other youngsters in the FIRST Lego League’s World Festival in Atlanta.

In these competitions, students must design robots, choreograph their movements, and research a science-related topic, based on a theme that changes each year. This year’s theme is nanotechnology, no easy choice for kids in grammar school, Iwanicki said.

The best part is watching her team solve the problems on their own. “You see the lightbulbs go off in their heads,” Iwanicki said. “That’s why I do it.

“I’ve got six kids on the team and they’re all different,” she said. “And somehow, when they are working on a problem, they start clicking.”

Athletics of the mind

In Quincy, educators have understood the teaching power of robots for 12 years. The city’s two high schools now have a corporate sponsorship arrangement with Gillette.

Emily Lebo, the director of career and technology education for the Quincy Public Schools, said her youth and high school robotics programs are so successful because they fuel a healthy competitive attitude in students.

“This is like an athletic event of the mind,” Lebo said. “It’s for kids who like problem-solving and critical thinking skills.”

Quincy’s middle schools even treat it like a sport, hosting a town-wide competition known as the President’s Cup. The trophy, naturally, is made of Legos.

Over the years, Ahearn estimates his teams at Sterling Middle School have used about 25,000 Legos. He is amazed at how popular Lego robotics is with his students.

“They’ll do it here and they’ll go home and ask their parents for it,” he said. “It’s a toy, it’s fun and they don’t know they’re learning. But they’re learning so much.”

Community support

Still, the programs carry a cost.

Ahearn said Quincy pays for its Lego robotics program with help from a federal grant, which covers stipends for the teachers who coach the teams.

The grant also pays for $50 playing mats, which each team is required to buy, the $150-per-team registration fee, and the robotics kits, which are reuseable yearly but cost between $200 and $300.

Norwell’s Cole Clippers are currently trying to raise $10,000 to send the students and their chaperones to Atlanta for the international competition. To register, the team needs to come up with a $1,000 entry fee.

At the start of the school year, the school’s Parent Teacher Organization helps buy supplies for the team. Parents are also asked to donate $50 to help pay for the Legos, batteries and competition fees.

In Hanover, DeFranzo’s team gets support from an educational enrichment foundation, but must raise money for its trip to Miami in April. The three-day competition will cost each student between $1,000 and $1,500, to cover entry fees, the hotel, airfare and other expenses.

For a high school student already interested in computers, electronics and math, few things are as exciting, DeFranzo said.

Some cannot afford the trip, he said, but most believe it is worth the price to see their robot in action.

“They’re building something by themselves,” he said, “and it actually moves and works.”

Andrew Lightman may be reached at alightman@ledger.com.

(c) 2007 Patriot Ledger, The; Quincy, Mass.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.