Students build LEGO robots, visit Mars

As a part of their tour for the First Lego League, students visited a replica of the Martian surface, led by teacher Becky Hill, at Starbase. Maxwell Elementary School hosted six regional schools for the FLL gathering, including six from Fort Benning, Ga. and one from Fort Rucker, Ala., on March 31. (Air Force photo by Jamie Pitcher)

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Students build LEGO robots, visit Mars

Published April 8, 2009
By Carl Poteat
Air University Public Affairs

MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. -- Elementary school students from four schools in Fort Benning, Ga., and one from Fort Rucker, Ala., joined Maxwell Elementary on March 31 for a day of building computerized robots and then programming them to do things such as transverse a replica of the Mars landscape.

Coordinator of the event was Becky Hill, who teaches gifted students at Maxwell Elementary. Ms. Hill said this was the first year that the schools combined to technically compete and hopefully spur interest in the fields of math and science.

In the morning the schools gathered at the Maxwell Elementary School gym where they used LEGO NXT products to build and program robots.

"Many of the robots created by the students were programmed using sound, light, distance, and touch sensors," Ms. Hill said. "They danced, sang, catapulted, cleaned house, and even put out fires!"

The schools also competed against each other using the First LEGO League format, Climate Connections. Points were earned as robots were given a task of "20 missions." The Maxwell students took first and third place in the Robotics portion of the competition while students from Fort Benning's E.A. White took second.

A research component of the FLL included presenting a skit based on a "climate connections" problem and the students' solution to the issue. The Maxwell fourth grade students tied for first place with "The Wizard of Global Warming," emphasizing how to reduce their carbon footprints.

In the afternoon, the students moved over to Maxwell's "Starbase", a Department of Defense funded facility that promotes aerospace education and interest in math and science. At Starbase, the students became the first to try out the new Mars display.

Ms. Hill explained the students where challenged with writing a program on laptops that would control the path of a "rover" moving through the terrain of a mockup of Mars' surface.

The first Lego Robotics Expo was a huge success, Ms. Hill said. The fourth, fifth, and sixth graders had no fear in tackling computer programming and are eagerly looking forward to expanding their technical knowledge, she added.

"The cooperation, communication, and problem solving skills used by the students are 21st century learning at its best."