Folsom Robot Press Release

Middle level students at the Folsom school have elevated their robots skills this year through a comprehensive approach to integrate robotics and programming into the 7^th grade math curriculum. Mr. Fitzgerald has been using robots with students since the district received a grant for the robots last year.

One of the main improvements over last year is “Skyping” with the Isle La Mott students on their robot projects. This is the first time in recent memory where students from island schools are interacting remotely on regular basis.

Similarly, this year has a much heavier emphasis on the use of sensors to develop more sophisticated robot behaviors, such as the “scaredy-bot”. The “scaredy-bot” cries when the lights are turned out, runs away from loud sounds or when people or objects get too close to it. Students learn basic loops, switches and wait statements before combining them in unique ways to accomplish their programming goals. Students also present their programs and their robots to one another during each class to select a winner, whose reward is no homework for the evening.

We hope to have our first “robot wars” before February vacation. Successful robots will not only use all of their sensors efficiently, they will be able to use three motors to move and protect themselves from other robots.

A select group of students has also elected to participate in the Lego FLL Body Forward challenge. These students must select a medical issue, research it, design a machine to address the issue and construct a prototype using legos. Finally, these students will present their findings to a group of professionals, such as the medical students at the University of Vermont Medical School in April.

Boom Whackers!

Seventh and Eighth grade students experienced “boomwhackers” this past week at the Folsom school as a result of research that concluded that music promotes better listening and focus skills among math students as long as the students were playing the music and not simply listening to it. This research was discussed in the acticle, “Hearing the Music, Honing the Mind” in Scientific American.

Mr. Fitzgerald coordinated with music teachers Jan Little and Rose Mary Zaymore to bring more music into the math classroom with the use of “boomwhackers”, which are plastic tubes whose length corresponds to specific musical notes or frequencies. Students were allowed to safely experiment with the sounds produced by the tubes before they sorted themselves by tube length and began to play patterns.

The students then constructed the first few notes of the “Ode to Joy” and wrote them on the board so that they could play the song together. This exercise made it clear that many of the students would benefit from more deliberate efforts to help them listen and focus.

The 8^th grade students also used their graphing calculators and CBL probes to measure the quality of sounds that were produced by the tubes. The students compared these measurements to the lengths of the tubes to predict the frequencies for the other tubes using equations, graphs.  

In this clip below, students are working on a loop using the boomwhacks. The musical loop should enforce the idea of a loop from programming robots. The video shows a separate loop. The third video in the sequence shows the combination of the two loops to form a song.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hearing-the-music-honing

Stock Market Blog

Folsom students recently began their annual stock market game. The tradition began six years ago and has expanded each year to accommodate growing student interest. Consequently, we are no longer using the University of Georgia’s Stocksquest and we are now using the Virtual Stock Exchange, through the Wall Street Journal.

Eighth grade students play the game for credit in math class and are expected to research, analyze and manage their $1000, 000 portfolio with their reading, graphing, statistics, and algebra skills. 8^th grade students have using Yahoo Financial to collect one-year graphs, analyst’s opinions, historical data and recent news clips on at least 10 companies.

Among this year’s top picks are annual favorites, such as Ford, Gander Mountain, Green Mountain Coffee, Apple, Google and Amazon. However, our interest in solar energy companies, stemming from our new solar away, was well rewarded with growth in companies like LDK. Similarly, interest in Ebay as a result of our service-learning project to sell ornaments has led to some strong returns for students.

The students are making connections between their academic subjects and the larger world, which is always good. The fact that they are having fun at the same time is truly remarkable. We hope that parents and community members will join our game. Contact Paul Fitzgerald at (802) 324-8450 for more information.

Robots Day 4-5

In this challenge, each robot successfully moves in square pattern after hearing a clap. The video clearly illustrates the different program that students developed to solve their problem.

The students were challenged today to build a "scaredy-bot". A successful "scaredy-bot" will run away from loud sounds, close proximity and it will cry when the lights go out.

Students had about a half hour to work on their projects and trouble shoot the various programs they would need to make this possible. Each student was encouraged to develop a single element of the challenge at a time.

This challenge was the last of the elementary challenges because we will start data logging next week.

Team Building Lunch

The 8th grade girls completed a team building activity today that brought a smile everyone's face and a warm meal to their plates.

The girls worked cooperatively to plan, prepare and serve a fantastic lunch using local ingredients for meatballs and apple crisp.

Thanks girls!

Pvc pipe Music analysis

The Drumbone project took another step in the right direction today. We used a vernier probe and our graphing calculators to capture the sound profile. We transferred our data using ti connect and graphed it using excel. We then fitted the data with waves and counted the waves that we observed in two hundredths of a second. Then, we compared these frequencies to the lengths of our pipes.

Then, some of the other 8th graders pitched in to solve our equations to find our missing notes and pipe lengths. The equations illustrate two column notes and superb algebraic reasoning.

Into Air

Folsom students attended the premiere performance of Lida Winfield's Into Air performance, which chronicled her plight with dyslexia and triumph through the arts.

Lida's highly personal performance began with her experiences in middle and high school, where she was placed into alternative settings that assaulted her self esteem. Her mother's constant support enable Lida to survive academically, even though she felt like she was grasping for "air" while drowning.

Lid's performance also addressed the ground breaking work of the Landmark College in Vermont. http://www.landmark.edu/. Lida demonstrated learning her multiplication tables while juggling and many other dynamic approaches to helping her process information in a way that worked for her.

Few observers made it through the performance, tear free and unchanged. Lida's has had a significant impact our our school's ability to help students learn and communicate their learning through movements. It is our sincere hope that Lida's example will make the lives of all of our students richer.

Drumbone

Several of our students have elected to enter The Blue Man group instrument competition as their problem solving goal. The Blue Man group is widely regarded as highly entertaining because of their poignant observations and because of their crass humor. Both of these characteristics make the group particularly popular among middle level students and we have taken our students to see live performances on the Boston trip twice.

Of the many innovative instruments, the drumbone is one of the most compelling because it is large and it requires multiple people to play. The drumbone combines the sliding action of a trombone with the percussive action of a drum.

Our students are modifying a prototype that I built as an example. They are also reading several different research papers on drumbone design. These papers each highlight significant mathematical relationships between the dimensions of the drumbone and frequencies produced by the instruments.

If the students win the competition, they could earn up to $5000.

Ode to Joy

Several members of our team toured the school on a mission of good will with Mrs. Zaymore. 

Happy Birthday- en Francais!

New Writing Systems

At the recent inservice training, Julie Pidgeon presented the district's newest assessment system for writing. Julie worked answered questions from the teachers and ran a calibration activity for teachers.

The new assessment system will focus on responding to a writing prompt within a specific time period. This type of "dip stick" activity will generate data that allows the entire district to collect similar information , which should allow for deeper conversations at inservice.

Composting at Folsom

We won a $500 grant in the fall to start a composting program at Folsom. Since then, the 7/8 has been divided into groups to accomplish specific and interconnected tasks that are necessary for a successful composting system at Folsom.

The design group was tasked with creating an "animal proof" shed to protect the composting materials from animals. Animal interference caused the previous efforts at composting to fail so we knew we had to anticipate this issue. In addition to the paper design, we hope this group will use google Sketch-Up to make a 3-d rendering of the shed.

The construction group was tasked with the physical assemble of the shed that was designed by the design group. This group is working with community partner, Greg Smith, to complete this task when the design team has finished their work.

The waste management group is responsible for designing a successful waste flow system at our school. At the moment, all waste is deposited into the trash. This group has proposed that some of our waste should be  placed in the trash but other waste can be composted, recycled and terracycled. Our preliminary data suggests that the cafeteria produces about 20 pounds of waste daily and that as much as 50% of this could be composted if we created a meat composter.

The soil management group is responsible for designing a successful compost system that balances the temperature, water and mixture of browns and greens to ensure that composing is taking place efficiently. This group is chiefly responsible for understanding the chemistry and physics of composting.

The brochure and poster group are working with community partner Karen McCloud to design visual displays that help children and families participate fully in the new systems. The brochure group is designing a 3 fold brochure that explains the system to parents so that they can plan bag lunches that improve our sustainability. The poster group is tasked with designing visual displays at school that make our systems clear to all children so that they can fully participate in the process.

Ornament Exchange

The annual ornament exchange has been a highlight of the holiday season for the entire 7/8 team at Folsom  and this year was no exception. Starting in early December, each student begins work on an ornament and an authentic complement for their "secret ornament" person. Over the following weeks, students assemble information about their "person" and they design an appropriate ornament. The ornaments must be hand made and from readily available materials.  After the exchange, we all have a snack together.

Solar Meetings

Folsom students met with Dwayne Cormier to discuss the new solar array. Representative students from each of the academic teams at Folsom met to exchange questions and ideas about how the solar array could be used to transform Folsom into the premiere alternative energy learning site in the region.

We are poised to lead New England for many different reasons. We have a state of the art array and a custom designed monitoring system that will be designed in response to student and teacher input. We have a motivated and small staff, which means that the entire staff can be trained in alternative energy education with relative ease. We also have a progressive and aware community that supports alternative energy and efficiency. 

Graphing Calculators, CBL and TI Connect

Studying the physical properties of matter is a perfect opportunity for students to learn to collet data using probes. This process requires some pre-planning but gives students large and interesting data sets. The pictures below illustrate students transferring data from one calculator to the next using a cable. 

This lab is interesting because the graph of the temperature versus time for boiling water and salt water is roughly logistic, because there is a maximum temperature, which causes  state change in water from liquid to gas. Students often think that anything can be continued to be heated and increase in temperature and the dramatic graphs make this much clearer for them.

Once the students have transferrer their data to their calculators, they can copy the data to their computers using a free download, TI Connect, from Texas Instruments. 

Early exposure to this technology prepares students for the rigors of high school. 

Granola Performance Task

Students recently completed a performance task, which is a timed and cooperative lab assignment. This specific task could easily appear on the spring science NECAP because the task is rich with measurement, observation and requires a conceptual understanding of not only what the students can measure, but what the students cannot measure.

In this task, students are using the physical properties of granola to identify, separate and weigh the component materials. The students then make tables and graphs and analyze their findings relative to the wrapper to determine which materials they were unable to recover.

Square Programs

And to the winner... a night without math homework!

Busy middle level students love robots. They also love their free time. It is amazing what they will do if you create a competition and give the winner a little less homework and a little more free time, which is just what I did today.

The entire class was challenged to create a program that caused the robot to make a square. Programs such as this are very challenging for the students, even when the task is modeled using logo. The challenges arise because the students have to learn to convert turning two wheels into a result for the orientation of the robot, which is very tricky.

The students have at least three different approaches, but they don't always see all three. If the students isolate one wheel, they can run trial and error quite quickly and get their exact result.

The students can also conduct trial and error with both wheels, but this is a more complex task.

Students with algebraic reasoning developed have a third option, to use proportional reasoning to solve an equation. If students compare several measurements of how far the robot actually turned to the angle they set in the program, they can make an equation to make the robot turn any degree.

The competition, however, often creates pressure, which makes the students rush to trial and error. This is also common with testing, which is why it is so important to train the students to slow down, consider all of their options and make a good choice. Chess helps a lot with this too.

The winning students, however, used trial and error successfully because they were incredibly cooperative and did not argue with one another. Instead, they increasingly refined their program until they discovered that an angle of 224 degrees of tire rotation completed the trick.

Some examples of a trial run from the winning team...

Day 4-Constructing Cars

The students built min-cars today so that they could begin to make programs that force the robot to move. This particular car design came from the University of Arizona, which has a truly exemplary robot website. The site is loaded with activities and suggestions that are usable and well studied. We will be using the Mars Rover activity early next week or later this week.