The Los Alamitos Education Foundation brought a new Robotics program to middle school students during the first session of the Summer Enrichment Institute, which ended on July 10.
This program was made possible by the Tesoro Foundation, which granted $16,000 to support purchasing the robots, software and supplies, and teacher training. Tesoro generously supports the community in many ways including expanding STEM education for middle school students. Tesoro Corporation is an independent refiner and marketer of petroleum products. They employ approximately 1,450 people in the Los Angeles area.
LAEF’s Robotics teacher Morgan Martin said, “Seeing the students develop critical thinking skills and master the daily challenges is what teaching is all about. I really enjoyed teaching these classes!”
There were two sections of the class reaching 30 total students. Class participants worked in pairs to write computer code, which serves as the instructions for the robot’s movement and is downloaded onto the robot.
When the coding is run within the robot, it moves along paths on the challenge boards.
The challenges incorporated touch, light and color sensors. Students built the robots using the Lego EV3 system and could program robot personalities by naming them and incorporating music and graphics.
The Robotics program will continue after school in the fall and spring of the 2015-16 school year at McAuliffe and Oak Middle Schools. For additional information on LAEF, call 562-277-6876 or visit .
