About

What is the Purpose of the Robotics Class?

This class has two goals.

First, the class supplements primary and secondary school STEM education by engaging with scientific principles through hands-on practice, creativity, and play. More specifically, the class builds on the standards set forth in the Next Generation Science Standards for California Public Schools and develops competency in building real-world engineering projects that are grounded in concepts from physics, classical mechanics, mathematics, logic, and computer programming. Students make working robots and simple machines.

Second, the class promotes teamwork, ethical competition, cooperation, inclusivity, mutual support, focus, and goal-setting in a small group setting. Students engage with their peers and learn to collaborate towards larger goals. The class initially began soon after the end of the pandemic, and at that time we were looking for ways to get kids to work with each other in a more direct and personal way than through online meetings.

Who am I?

For the last three years, I have spent weekends coaching teams of kids to compete in the FIRST Lego League competition tournament, with my daughter as one of the team members. A few years ago, when my then four-year-old daughter started playing with Legos, we started to make simple machines to learn about physics, classical mechanics, math, and programming. Eventually, we expanded on these projects, gathered some of my daughters' friends together, and organized a team to participate in the FIRST Lego League competition. Now we've also got a team of kids from the local community. Aside from this, I am an academic with a doctorate in the history of art from UC Berkeley and a job as a university professor (here's a public lecture I gave). I also volunteer as a coach for the local Science Olympiad team.

Here are some of the things we did.

What is the FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge?

FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge (FLL) is a team-based, international competition in which children aged between 9 and 14 years design, build, program, and launch a robot made completely from Lego toys to complete a set of tasks for points on a standardized table within two minutes and thirty seconds. All teams are judged around three criteria: a set of core values, their performance on the game table, and presentation of their team projects to a group of judges.

What is the Mechanical Arts Initiative?

The Mechanical Arts Initiative, Inc., promotes the appreciation and practical understanding of classical mechanics. Our current main project is integrating classical mechanics into robotics education by teaching kids how to participate in the FIRST® LEGO® League competition.

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this site. FIRST® is a trademark of For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST®), which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this site. FIRST® LEGO® League (formerly also known as FLL®) is a jointly held trademark of FIRST and the LEGO Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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