Students Learn Robotics At Mellen High School
This fall, 15 high school students in the Mellen School District will take a technology class that will push them into the world of robotics.
“The idea is that we're trying to support engineering,” said Theresa Paulsen, who teaches the “Principles of Technology” class.
Paulsen said the students will be using Lego Mindstorms products to plan, build, program, and test robots this year. Through the process of making their robots, the students may also interact over the internet with other students at other schools that are doing similar projects. Through those interactions the students would be able to compare plans with one another in an effort to improve their ideas.
“In each step you can learn something new,” Paulsen said.
The class, though centered on robotics, will also incorporate core curriculum concepts, Paulsen said. One idea is to have the students learn about pH values of different solutions, and then program the robots to test the pH of various items, like a robot might do if tasked to explore a different planet, she explained.
Over the course of the class the students may compete with one another and may take on a challenge to come up with a robotic animal of some kind, Paulsen said.
Don Karr, engineer and plant manager at Columbia Forest Products in Mellen, will visit the class during the semester to talk about engineering as a career. The students will then have the opportunity to tour the Columbia Forest Products veneer plant and see the computer programs in action that the plant uses in making its wood products.
The Mellen School District received a $4,660 competitive science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) grant from the state earlier this year in support of the robotics program. To qualify for funding, projects were to include student activities and collaborate with another school district, two- or four-year college, business or industry, or community-based or nonprofit organization that serves youth.
Due to funding reductions in the state budget, only $59,400 was available for these grants across the state for the 2010-11 school year, according to information from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Nearly 40 grant applicants sought $194,000 in funding, though only 13 projects were funded.
“The demand for funding to support STEM programs for students who are underrepresented in those fields far out-paces available resources,” State Superintendent Tony Evers said in a news release. “A thorough discussion of Wisconsin’s school finance system through the ‘Fair Funding for Our Future’ framework will focus our efforts and ensure we put our precious education dollars into innovation that works to support students’ academic success.”
Along with Mellen, the South Shore School District received $4,660 in funding for introducing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in CESA #12 elementary schools.