Robo Olympians go for gold

FORT RECOVERY - Most associate the Olympics with world-class athleticism and remarkable physical feats, but the kids in Cindy Moorman's technology class have been celebrating the two-week competition in a different way.

At the start of her noon class each day this week, Moorman split her fifth-grade students into groups to try their hands at a different Winter Olympic event - ice hockey; curling; freestyle, alpine and downhill skiing; or figure skating.

The kids grabbed their robots, chose an event and the games began.

To 'win gold,' each group had to use iPads to program their robots to complete specific tasks. For the ice hockey event, the kids needed to program their robot to push blocks into either the American or other team's goal box. For ice skating, they needed to make the robots perform a figure eight.

It may sound like they were playing with toys, but it wasn't as simple as guiding something like a radio-controlled car. Kids used different programs to order the robots to move how they want, such as the Blockly program or the Go app.

When using Blockly, the kids must drag and drop a set of commands the robot will execute and can choose to move the robots forward a certain distance or turn at a certain angle.

"It's been going really well and the kids enjoy it, plus it helps with teamwork and communication and grit, like not giving up and working together," Moorman said. "It also has to do with measurement and degrees, rotation."

The kids can be as creative as they want as long as they get the robot to complete the task, so there's no one right answer. Activities like this help kids develop "soft skills" that can't be measured by standardized testing, Moorman continued, such as the ability to step back from a failure, learn from it and try again - which is useful as the kids figure out how to work the robots.

"Sometimes the robots don't seem to do what you want them to do," Moorman said, laughing.

Ava Grisez, Tony Brown, Kyle Huntsman and Mason Diller could attest to that. Though they said they love Mrs. Moorman's class, rating it a 10 out of 10, they also agreed working with the robots was a lot harder than it looked. As they took turns getting their robot to figure skate, they debated which commands to put in.

"It's kind of complicated," Brown said before turning back to his classmates.

"We do programming on the computer also at different websites, but this is hands-on where they can see immediately, nope, that doesn't work, I better try something different. It's so good for them to know that there's not one right answer," Moorman said.

The older grades use a robot called Dash that can be programmed to move, while younger students use a robot called Dot, which doesn't move on its own but can be programmed to emit certain sounds and flash different lights. The Dash and Dot Robot Olympics will be held in Moorman's classes for one more week, and Moorman says she'll be posting video to the class's YouTube channel.

Fort Recovery Local Schools was able to buy robotics supplies after receiving a $5,000 grant from the Mercer County Economic Development Office, Moorman said. With kids showing interest, she hopes to expand the program if more funding can be secured.

"Hopefully next year we'll be able to use some of the LEGO robots to do a LEGO team," she said. "We're still learning, but it's neat. They get to do lots of neat stuff that I didn't get to do when I was a kid."