Open ROV HS/Elementary Engagement Project

My Students

Robotics is exceptionally engaging for students. Our district pilot projects this past fall showed us this in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 7th and 9th grade classes. There is no better way to involve kids with the principles of engineering, and apply common core curriculum to prepare kids for real-world careers.

I have two levels of students: 1) high school, interested in robotics engineering as a possible career field.

These kids will build the kit and demonstrate them to middle and elementary students, and use them to learn enough about underwater robotics to build their own robots for competition in MATE. 2) elementary students in several classrooms. We have already taken EV3 and WEDO kits to 2nd grade through 5th grade classrooms and been amazed at the interest and length of engagement time of all the elementary students. As one parent reported to her daughter's elementary teacher: my kid was bouncing on my bed at 6am to tell me that we had to get up so we could get to school so we don't miss robotics. Another story from another teacher - we just completed our first round of parent conferences and every parent commented on how interested their child was in our robotics program - we have to do more of this. Our schools has 6 elementary schools, 2 middle schools and 2 high schools.

My Project

We will build the OpenROV kit, then use it to learn about underwater ROV operations. We will then do two different, related tasks: 1) Use what we have learned to build a robot suitable for competition in the Ranger class of the MATE competition. We have never entered this competition and see it as a wonderful application of our classroom learning, in a field rich with career opportunities. 2) We will take the device to our middle schools and elementary schools, demonstrate how it works, and then use video to show the ROV in operation in a local swinging pool. If we can arrange for it, we will give live video demos where the kids in the classroom can operate the vehicle remotely from the classroom as the ROV operates in the pool several miles away. We have the connecting technology, we just need the robot that can utilize video for remote operation, which this OpenROV has.

Students at the high school level are involved in project-based, team learning... exactly what their future employers want from young workers.

They will also be engaged in mentoring... our district has learned that students at both levels enjoy this experience. Our elementary students get to experience a wonderful, exciting "what if" right in their own classrooms - an application of the simple robotics curriculum they have experienced in a short two week introduction.