Robotics and so much more...

I know it should have hit me before, but this is exactly what we should all be doing in the classroom.

One parent told me that it would be like combat, you know,  "interminable boredom punctuated by moments of terror"--well not exactly terror, but a one-minute round of excitement following seven hours of waiting.

My fourth-grade son came home six weeks ago to let us know that he had "made the team."  Not that you know my son, but my wife and I could not imagine that it would be the basketball team, or football, or soccer, or any other sport--it was the robotics team.  My wife has resigned herself, despite a letterman's jacket (are we ready for a gender-neutral term yet?) of her own festooned with patches and pins from her high school exploits, that our son, who taught himself to read at three, learned the periodic table at seven, and lives for Legos and airplanes, might not be on the same athletic track.

We have modified (one of his favorite terms to throw around at his team) our schedules to accommodate our kids--Monday is ballet for our daughter, and Wednesday is robotics practice for our son.

We contemplated getting shirts, horns, and face paint for the first competition, but now realize that the spectators tend to be a bit different than the the Friday-night football-game crowd.

I am the first to admit that I did not know what to expect, but what I found was learning at its best.  The teams have a challenge--this year it is to move and, if possible, stack three-inch plastic cubes that have been set up on a special table.  The teams have spent the past six weeks discussing, planning, testing, and prototyping with their remote-control robots.  At the competition, their robot is placed in the rink and has one minute to perform.

Last Saturday was a practice competition, but 12 schools from my district and five or six other schools from across Southern California, descended upon my son's school, the host for the day, to test their designs under the simulated conditions of the actual competitions that are approaching--next time I am brining an easy chair and a cooler.

The designs were eclectic and creative, but also largely untested and prone to failure.  One team's sweeper arm impacted the rink's wall and sheered off just seconds into the round and another robot faceplanted as a complicated gripping mechanism of motors and gears grabbed the first block, completely upset by a new term, center of gravity.  My son's team arrived to find that their claw had not been put away in the same bin as the rest of the robot, organization is key, and so they had to compete in the first round without it as my son, a team builder, frantically tried to build another.  My son's coach simply asked, "How can you fix it?"

Some of you with a particular instructional bent are experiencing a bit of a twinge right now.  Your own gears are whirring as you see the process begin to take shape--challenge, theorize, discuss, collaborate, plan, create, test, fail, modify, adapt, communicate, critique, check, reflect, refine, solution, compete...and the outcome?  

How many of our classrooms capitalize upon these processes?  How many have 100% engagement and participation?  How many of us ask the questions rather than provide answers?  How often does inquiry drive learning and the best thing the teacher can do is to get out of the way?

My son's team did not fair well in the competition, but I know they will do better next month.  They looked at what other teams did to be successful, but in no way do they simply want to copy them--they want something better.

On the way to school today, my son looked up as the garage door opener cranked up the door.  "Dad, what is that spinning thing and how does it work?," he asked.

"That's a worm gear--it's a screw that drives a slotted shoe along a track as it spins, pulling the door open."

"That gives me an idea."

I am sure that it does.