By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
Fully understanding today's technology can be a lifelong pursuit, especially when it comes to programming and machine/human interaction.
With a goal of helping create a high level of technical ability in today's youth, a group of middle school educators recently converged in Hays to take advantage of a program that breaks down complex engineering and computing problems into a diminutive — some might say cute — Lego robot coding program.
The two-day event was led by Hays Middle School exploratory/industrial tech teacher Brad Moritz.
"I teach a class that incorporates robotics in it at the seventh-grade level called exploratory tech," Moritz said. "And in that class, we do rockets, we build bridges ... and robots. And so we spent about three weeks in my seventh-grade class learning how to do the robots."
That interest paired with his own history with robotics lessons at Fort Hays State University led to his leadership of the workshop.
"One of the first things that I did 15 years ago was got involved with some robotics stuff that Fort Hays did at a workshop when I was a new teacher here in Kansas," Moritz said. "And they gave me a robot and that kind of launched my interest in doing all that stuff, just like these teachers are doing today."
And after building up a fleet of robots and incorporating them in class, he said he started doing robotics camps for upper-level elementary kids and middle school students in the summer for Fort Hays.
"I've done that about seven times," Moritz said. "Then they started getting these NASA grants."
With that grant program, participants not only get to learn about the Lego robots, but they can also take them back to their classrooms to use with their students.
"So, this teacher workshop that we do is supported by the Kansas NASA Space Grant," said organizer and FHSU College of Education Dean Paul Adams.
"The whole thing about the NASA (grants), they're trying to engage, inspire, enhance STEM education," Adams said. "So part of this is to empower the teachers to go home. More, we've talked some about NASA resources related to robotics, because robotics is a big part of careers you can do."
While some participants were getting their first experience with the program, for Thomas More Prep-Marian Junior High science teacher Jason Casper getting to learn on the latest interaction of the mini Lego robots provided an update to previous iterations.
"Well, for me learn how to program on these newer ones are way different than the old ones," Casper said. "The old ones were all about coding. From the standpoint of having to type or line coding, these are block codes. So it's a little bit different, a little easier, actually. But still, the same concept. It's just an easier way of doing it."
"This is the fourth generation robot that Lego has built," Mortiz said. "The third generation, I've had those robots in my classroom for about 12 years, they are retiring those this year. So this is their new product that has just come out, their software is updated for it. In the software, you can program it, and it's all graphical interface."
The graphical blocks of code, are put into sequential order to carry out instructions.
"Sensors, that instead of telling the motor to stay on for a certain number of rotations, we can just tell the motor to start," Mortiz said. "And then the sensors can tell the motors when to turn off based on if we told it to stop, because it saw a wallet 15 inches away, or stopped because the color sensor saw red, you know, it read the value of red on the ground or something. So you know, there are all kinds of different ways that you can get it to do things, but it's all graphical."
For more precise coding, he said, the robots can also be programmed using the Python coding language.
He said programming and learning how to make robots complete tasks can be valuable in a variety of jobs.
"If they can get some of those things figured out, and the basic concept of coding those true statements — If This Then That, if this happens, then do that — then that just opens up a whole lot of different possibilities for career choices," Mortiz said.
And even for those that will not use coding in their work, he said, understanding technology will be important for everyone as robots become more ubiquitous.
"From the kids' perspective, we live in a technological world right now that they will not go for the rest of their lives without having robots be a part of it, somehow, someway," Mortiz said. "Either a personal robot that vacuums their house, or the car that takes them to Taco Shop, when they jump in and say, 'Hey, take me to Taco Shop.' You may not be a robot per se, it won't be a robot that gets around the wheel, but the robot will be the car.
"We live in all kinds of automated systems and machinery that are controlled by a code of some sort. And that's exactly the program that we're learning to control our robots in this venue is that coding skill, where it's a step-by-step list of instructions to tell the robot what to do. Same exact code in your vehicle that tells you that, that says to apply the brakes, if it sees obstacle avoidance or something in front, or don't go into this lane, because there's a warning. ... Somebody wrote the code to that, that gives you that warning that something's behind you or to your right or left or even gets dark than the headlights turn on. It's all code."
But he said it all begins with basic educational efforts.
"This is kind of a starting point for kids to start," Mortiz said. It's relevant for kids just because it launches them into a lot of different robotics, careers and computing careers for coding. ... Even if they don't want to code robots they can sell them, they can pair them, they could use them, they could design them, they could paint them. Robots are going to be everywhere and they can be a part of that."
