|
| Bowdoin College computer science professor Eric
Chown and two of his independent study students hosted my Toddy
Pond School class at their robotics lab last Friday. We shared the
LEGO Mindstorms robots we have built and programmed while Bowdoin
students Phil Sharp and Byron Boots shared the work
they've done with their multi-thousand dollar robots. |
Toddy Pond student Brian gets
a look at how the big kids do it. |
Fourth grader Patric Skigen explains
the program guiding his robot. |
Toddy Pond
School students have been using versions of Robolab, an icon-based
programming language developed as an offshoot to LabVIEW, to control
their robots. LabVIEW is the software used internationally by scientists
to program data monitoring instruments. "Our physics department
is using something similar [to Robolab]," commented professor
Steve Majercik. |
|
The Toddy Pond robots will be competing in the First LEGO League
annual tournament to be held this December.
"We're thinking of offering a Mindstorms class for non-computer
science majors at Bowdoin," explained Professor Chown. "Students
will buy a Mindstorms kit and learn about programming." Bowdoin
professors Chown and Majercik seemed impressed with the programming
our eight to twelve year-olds were doing.
|
Aibo was a big hit! |
After sharing their robots, the Toddy
Pond students were treated to the antics of Aibo, Sony's robotic
dog. Sharp, working on an independent study, demonstrated how he
has programmed Aibo to respond to voice commands and to play with
a ball. We could follow what Aibo was "seeing" by watching
a video monitor on Sharp's computer. |
| Later, we watched a video of a team of five Aibos programmed by
Carnegie Mellon graduate students defeat an Australian graduate
school's team of Aibos in a soccer match. A former Bowdoin student
was on the winning team. "There were more than ten thousand
lines of programming on those robots," marveled Sharpe. The
robotic dogs, working autonomously, were very entertaining! |
The Pioneer ATX2 robot leading
the way through Searles Hall at Bowdoin College. |
Byron Boots demonstrated how he has programmed the
Pioneer ATX2 robot to map the space it is in. Once again, we were
able to follow its progress via images transmitted back to a computer.
The Toddy Pond students were also able to follow the robot up a
hallway as it mapped the space. |
| To cap off our exciting morning, we headed over to
Thorne Hall for lunch in one of the college's cafeterias. This,
too, proved to be fun. Most of the kids decided to make their own
sandwiches and to have a glass of chocolate milk. We sat down in
the midst of dozens of college students and enjoyed a nearly hour-long
lunch. Soft serve ice cream with rainbow sprinkles was the dessert
of choice! |
We sat down in the midst of dozens of college
students and enjoyed a nearly hour-long lunch. |
| Our visit to Bowdoin was our 11th field trip this school year.
Getting kids out to experience things first-hand has always been
a cornerstone of Toddy Pond School's philosophy. The results are
overwhelmingly positive. Commented Professor Chown, "All the
faculty remarked that we wished our kids were so enthusiastic." |
|
