Keeping up with technology in the modern world is a challenge that keeps educators, students and their families on their toes. Technology is changing so fast that, recently, education has shifted the focus away from learning hard skills; instead focusing on giving students the problem-solving skills they need to navigate any task they are given with the tools they have at hand.
One of the clearest examples of this idea can be seen in Laramie County School District 1’s Lego Robotics challenges and scrimmages like the event that was held Nov. 18. During these events, teams of students from throughout Laramie County can be seen excitedly buzzing around with iPads or robots in hand, chatting with their teammates and showing off their creativity to their families and the judges.
LCSD1 Science Coordinator Julie Calkins described the atmosphere as “organized chaos.”
“It’s a wonderful group of kids, and a lot of them are students that aren’t necessarily in football or in other activities, so it fills another niche for them. I think that’s exciting,” Calkins said.
Calkins said she has heard some parents express that Lego Robotics has their students excited to go to school.
The Lego Robotics program, which is organized under the international First Lego League rules, focuses on teamwork. Each student on the team has an opportunity to use their strengths, whether they are skilled at researching, coding, designing the robot, creating an artistic display board or more.
“Each student gets to participate,” Calkins said. “That’s what I like about it, too. It’s not a solo event, it’s a team event.”
Since the event is divided into categories and it is a team’s best score rather than their average score that counts, students can celebrate their successes and learn from their mistakes more easily.
Calkins said, “We’ve actually had robots that do not work win the design challenge because of [students’] thought process of how they worked together building their robot, how they can answer questions, how they are still trying things to fix their design.
“They can go through their engineering design book to show how they did one thing at a time. The judges are just so impressed with how everybody was in the collaborative effort that they win it.”
Calkins said she often sees students offer ideas to other teams, making the events less of a competition and more of a “coopertition.”
“Core values is a major part of the First Lego League’s mission. How do you treat each other as a team, how do you make decisions, what do you do if you’re mad at each other, how do you work things out?” Calkins said.
The program also has a category called Explore in which students as young as preschoolers can participate in robotics. Calkins said she enjoyed seeing a kindergartener who had participated in the program last year helping a preschooler.
She has also seen more girls participating and even had an all-girls team in the challenge this year.
“Watching the progression from when we started the program, watching the coaches grow and do less and less while the students do more and more, I just can’t celebrate that enough,” Calkins said.
—Photo & text by Brad White
