Why We Need To Embrace Esports In Education • Teched Up Teacher

I have been thinking about this lately, especially during these unusual times. I know one of my colleagues a while back started a gaming team with Fortnite. But he left and no one took over. So why not try this for next year? Who knows what the school year is going to look and maybe this will be a great outlet for students?  The author talks about the two most important things he hopes to address on by hosting esports; “violence in the age of school shootings” and “the misogyny found in a disturbing subset of gaming culture”. Being a gamer myself I think both are good points to make to students. Gaming can be violent and mature, so some will have a concern. The author debates this, it is evident that there are violent games, but games like overwatch are cartoon violence. Which I am not sure if he is not stretching it here a bit. I do know that games like Overwatch and Fortnite are the major draws for esports. This is the future, and it can be used a teaching tool.

To say esports is booming would be an understatement. Esports, or electronic sports, is the term used to describe the sport of competitive video game playing. The world of professional esports has exploded over the last few years and is expected to reach nearly 5 billion in value and a global audience of nearly 600 […]

Source: Why We Need To Embrace Esports In Education • Teched Up Teacher

NCSTA Conference November 15-16th

If you are a Teacher in NC, the North Carolina Science Teachers Association is hosting their annual conference. I will be presenting this year. My topic will be our JPL Open Source Rover we built at our school. Rover Build Roverto is being retrofitted with new parts and electronics. It has become a legacy project at our school and I wanted to share this with other educators in the State.

Want to build a Rover? How do you get started? JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) shared open-source plans for a Rover built in 2018. Learn what it takes to build this Rover and to get your school community involved with this project. Our presentation will review the steps that the Cardinal Gibbons High School Robotics Team took to build JPL Rover and how the school community came together to create a legacy project. Detailed information about how to fund this project, how to find building parts, and how much time to allow for the building of the Rover will be shared. 6-12, College 

Check out the link for the schedule and information about the conference, “Want to Build a Rover”

Feel Free to contact me if you have any questions. I will also be presenting at the Middle School Share-A-Thon with someone from AMS about different professional development opportunities.

Rover is Driving

A couple of things have happened in the past couple of weeks since my last post. The most important Rover event…ITS DRIVING! can’t believe we got it going. But we did it. More like the kids did it! So how did this happen. Well a bit of trouble shooting and hard work. Advice, if you are building the Rover, make sure you have a computer that can handle the Basic Micro Studio software, its needed to calibrate the Robo Claws and Motors. We are still working on turning, but we got it moving. Check out the video below.

The turning will come, once we figure out what is wrong with our settings. The Rover is unique in that has six wheels. So turning is a bit different than a normal 4 wheel turn. The wheels use Ackerman steering which takes into account “if the rover is turning, each wheel will need to spin at a slightly different rate to avoid slipping or “scrubbing”.”

It’s really interesting looking at the engineering, science and math principles used to build the rover. The next job is not only the turning but also the head. We have to figure out the connections and wiring to the head. The head contains an LED matrix 16×32 pixel display which is controlled by the Raspberry Pi.  Currently the Rover Team is working on getting both done.

We ended up taking part in the NC Museum of Natural Science Astronomy Weekend. Our exhibit contained the Roverto and the Mars map from the Buzz Aldrin Sharespace Foundation.  The Robotics Team and Rover Team, worked together during the day to bring STEM to all the visitors. We had 8 mini rovers, outreach robots and Roverto working all day. According to the museum we had over 14,000 people for the weekend. It was amazing weekend and our students outdid themselves. Throughout the whole weekend visitors complemented our students on their patience and work they were doing.

Our next outreach was part of the Advocacy day for the First Robotics Organization. Our job that day was to talk to NC Representatives and Senators about Robotics and its impact on education. Again another success by our Robotics and Rover Team.

The story continues

So the title is a bit deceiving. When I say the story continues the story continues for a couple of reasons the Mars rover, we are still troubleshooting and calibrating the wheels on the Rover. But the good thing is we are very close to finally getting it to drive.

Meanwhile, we finally had our Google Hangout with Michael Cox from JPL. It was a great talk, Mr. Cox first introduced us to all the missions going on at the center. I never realized how many missions they were or are involved with. But Mr. Cox pointed out that JPL does all  Robotic and unmanned missions.  I didn’t realize this. Some of the best missions have come from JPL.  If you think about it Viking, Voyager 1 & 2, Mars Pathfinder, Cassini, Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity are all the missions that have come from JPL. Amazing! His talk was great because it showed the students all that JPL had done and what it offered.

The final discussion was about the Rover, he met the team and discussed how the Rover came about. The Rover team showed him all that they had done and talked about some of the difficulties they faced. It turned out to be a great meeting. I did suggest to him that maybe we could get all the high schools building the Rover together on a skype. Then trade different ideas. He thought that was great and would look into it.

One thing I believe is happening, students are getting a bit frustrated because of the calibration section. They are trying to get the motors and encoders calibrated, their efforts sometimes cause other problems or they find other problems. It’s a frustrating part of the whole build but a great problem solving moment. Actually I even think a great learning moment for them, not everything can go right in real life and this is just a example. I know it is frustrating to them and can be discouraging, they want the Rover to drive! But it’s a learning process that continues with this project.

The year begins!! 2019

Happy New Year! Another year done and now we head into the last leg of the school year. A lot will be happening in the next couple of the months. After thinking about all that is going on, I think I’ll be just a bit busy.

First, we are rolling out our Mars Rover this month. Hopefully we will name it this month, then we will bring it to NC Museum of Natural Science for Astronomy Weekend. It’s going to be a great weekend for all, the Rover Team and Robotics Team will be running the exhibit. A combination of robots and Mars map will make our exhibit one to remember. (By the way Astronomy Weekend is January 26^th and 27^th at the NC Museum of Natural Science in Raleigh).

Next our Robotics team is going be competing in their first Qualifier, so the next couple of weeks will be hectic with getting the Robot ready. By the way the challenge is called Rover Rukus and fits in well with our Rover. Check out the challenge at the First Tech website.

And of course, there is the daily classes to prepare for. I think I sometimes make more work for myself. I’ve discussed this with my colleagues. Instead of going with the lesson I always must change it. But my classes aren’t the same every year. And I’m always looking to improve to the lessons. Isn’t that what teaching being about also?

But of course, I also have to get involved in other things, like the Blogging Challenge sent out by A.J. Juliani, I tried to do this once before it started out great then went downhill. So, I’m trying it again. With all that’s going on I figure this year I can do this! Anyway, one of the benefits is that I get to read some great blogs by people.  And one of them is my colleagues who started blogging for the new year. Check out her blog. She’s a great Physics teacher and has some awesome things happening in class.

By the way if you are interested in naming the Rover, check out twitter @rippie77 with the Hastag #GibbonsMarsRover. And so the year begins!

Rover Build

So our build started about two months ago. Right now we work 2 days a week with maybe a couple hours on saturday. Like I said before 3 students are leading the charge on this project. But the help various Robotics mentors have been giving has been amazing too. So this entry will talk about the parts and mechanical assembly. Next blog entry will talk about the wiring issues, which I have to say have been challenging but one young man has done an awesome job with it. (Meihir you rock!)

To find all the parts you need for this Rover Project you need to go to the GitHub file area. There you’ll find parts list for different retailers. If you are lucky like our team, our head Robotics Coach/Mentor put a whole list together. He not only put the parts in order, but he also made up a shopping list, where to go and how much each part would cost. If you would like to contact me about that list please feel free, I can see if he will give me permission to share it.

Once we established that we had all the parts, we then had manufacture some of the parts. We are very lucky to have milling machine that was donated to us for cutting various parts. We used this to cut our side plates and base plates. It worked great!  Any type of Lexan parts that we needed we used a Shopbot to cut. Our Lead Coach has a Shopbot he has allowed the school to borrow.

Great time lapse of us cutting the lexan! #MarsRoverProject pic.twitter.com/T8RSOaRI6A

— Gibbons Physics Club (@physics_cghsnc) September 20, 2018

After working on the body parts, we started the wheels. Since the Hubs of the wheels did not have holes we had to cut them. Caution here after drilling the holes we found some of them didn’t line up correctly. Not a surprise, so we only used the holes that matched up (https://github.com/nasa-jpl/open-source-rover/blob/master/Mechanical/Wheel%20Assembly/Wheel%20Assembly%20Build%20Doc.pdf  ). Drill press would be a big help here. Lucky enough there were at least three holes in each wheel that worked. Also make sure the kids or Adults are putting the clamps on correctly. We had some put the screws in wrong way on the clamps hubs and put the clamps hubs on incorrectly. Not a big deal since we caught it, but might have caused a problem down the road.

Diagram from the Github files posted by JPL. https://github.com/nasa-jpl/open-source-rover/tree/master/Mechanical

Once we got the wheels on we started to work on Rocker-Bogie section. This is the section that holds the wheels to the body. When building the Rocker-Bogie be careful with the instructions they are bit confusing. According to our lead builders they need to be improved/clarified on how plates and bars are fitted together. Directions weren’t specific on whether each side is mirrored or the same. Also, you need to cut one of the aluminum channels, we used a milling machine, but obviously not everyone has this type of equipment. This is where a machine shop would be a big help. If you have one near you I would suggest you create a partnership with them, so they can help you.

Finished the rocker-bogie assembly today! Planning to start the mechanical integration tomorrow!!! #MarsRoverProject pic.twitter.com/eQ33jUhKIU

— Gibbons Physics Club (@physics_cghsnc) October 25, 2018

Our next section to work on was the Differential Pivot together. This was the part of the Rover that helps keep it from tipping over. It’s a big part of the suspension system. This is simplified, there is a lot more to it, great Physics lesson here. When putting together this part there was a section that we had to change just a bit, make sure you add more washers in between the aluminum bars and turnbuckle. We found it a bit unstable and adding the extra washers made a difference.

Diagram from the Github files posted by JPL. https://github.com/nasa-jpl/open-source-rover/tree/master/Mechanical

Once you start to build the Rover you come to find out there are small changes you can make to help make it work better. That’s what this blog post is about. These are the mechanical changes we made and tried to improve the build.  There are other minor changes we made, but I only concentrated on the most important ones. One final note, the build I think was easy, it’s the wiring and programing that will take longer. If you are thinking of doing this project contact me and I can share more information about the build.

It’s Rover Time!

In this blog post I’m going to talk about a “mission” we are in the process of completing. We are building drum roll please…the Mars Rover, yep you heard me. An open source build developed by @JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory Open Source Rover) I came across the build one day when I received a newsletter from NASA and it had a bit of a blurb about a Mars Rover.  I went to the website and find out about it. It looked interesting and a great learning opportunity.  I thought this might be something that we could do here at school. Since I’m involved with the robotics team, it seemed this could be a good fit. So, I emailed our Mentor, Head Coach and Biggest Supporter. You name it, he’s an all-around total support and leader of the robotics team. I e-mailed him the website and information. I’m not kidding within next 24 hours he sent me an email telling me it was possible with a list of all the parts and cost. Amazing right, well he was as excited as I was to do this.

I gathered all the information needed and decided to approach our Principal. I stated my case by promoting the “mission” as a great community opportunity especially once the Rover was built.  It could really be used to bring in tons of other people and the Rover could be used for other club’s activities. While being a great teaching tool. He thought it was a good idea. And after a long talk with him he funded our project. We are planning on a ton of things to do. Once our Principal gave us the go, we started to order the parts and had a meeting. The Rover team right now consists of students from Physics club (@physics_cghsnc ), Gibbons Robotics (@robotics_cghsnc) and Space Explorers Club (@spaceexp_cghsnc). The group mainly has students from the Physics Club. Two members come to mind Peter and Mihir. Both have done an outstanding job working on this project. I can’t begin to tell you how much their leadership is appreciated.

So, this began our project two months ago. Check out the pictures from the beginning. It all started with having to inventory all the parts. The whole Rover has about 400 parts, if not more. Once that was finished we needed to manufacturer some parts. This is where our maker room came in handy.

For now, I’ll end here, because I could go on forever. The excitement around the Rover is building and hopefully we will have a fully functional Mars Rover by Thanksgiving. I’ll keep up with the posts. My next one will go over the good and bad we have faced since the beginning.

NatGeo Educators

Recently I was honored to be interviewed for the NatGeo Educator Spotlight. They interviewed me about my capstone I did for them on their certification. You can read about their certification National Geographic Certification.  I’m always a bit hesitant of being interviewed, but it turned out okay and I’m happy to have shared my project with everyone.

Now for the project I’m not sure if I did write about the project in the past. But as you read through the interview you will get an idea what’s about. I used the Book reading project we do in class and integrated the maps from National Geographic. During the year I give a book reading project, students in class read Rocket Boys and Hidden Figures. Two great books by the way. Students are given a schedule for reading, I would recommend this, I found it helpful for the students. My sophomores knew exactly what pages they had to have done by a certain date. Feedback from students indicated this kept them on track, even for my Honors class.

Rocket Boys Book Project

When completing their reading they had to answer questions on a google form and then they were to create a presentation answering the questions posted on the assignment sheet. I changed things up a bit, by choosing different groups to present after each section was completed. I decided the year after I had implemented this project, I would adjust it and assign the “Hidden Figures” book. Last year was the first year we did both books. The only changes I’m going to make for next  year is I will assign this project in the 2nd Semester. I’m flipping the Genius Hour project with this project.

To enhance the Rocket Boys Project I used National Geographic Maps and Mapmaker.  Basically the goal of the lesson was to get students to understand the different resources (geological)  in each state. Using the maps the students needed to create a legend and indicate on the maps the resources and geology of the states. During the activity we highlighted West Virginia and Coal Mining. Integrating some of the readings from Rocket Boys. They also learned about their own state and its resources.  Feedback from the students was great, they gave some ideas on how to improve the activity.  

The project was my capstone for the certification. I would recommend the program to anyone who would like to become a part of the NatGeo Education community.

For those of you who are interested here are the National Standards I addressed with this project: HS-ESS3-1 Earth and Human Activity and HS-ESS3-3 Earth and Human Activity.

National Geographic Education Twitter: @NatGeoEducation

 

Up, Up and Away

 

An amazing opportunity was presented to us when a parent offered to help launch a weather balloon for our school. I’ve been trying to do this for a long time. When the student came forward and offered to have his father work with us I jumped at the chance.  Awesome! That is all I could think. What an educational opportunity for my students. Plus, it fit in with the curriculum that I was teaching in class; meteorology. It also was an event the whole school could take part in. Which did happen.

The launch was sponsored by the Science Department and Space Explorers Club. Once we had our launch date, Earth Day, one of our students created a mission patch for the event. Using the mission patch we created buttons to hand out at Earth Day. I then had a student create our payload, he 3D printed the Banner for our Astronaut. It was a great opportunity to get students involved in the event.

So it didn’t go as planned, launch day had to be rescheduled due to weather. So we decided to launch the week after. And that was probably a good idea because the landing predictor had the balloon heading towards the coast, it seems the Jet Stream was pretty fast that day.  Below you see the comparison between the predicted and actual path of the balloon. After launch we tracked the balloon to Pine Level, NC.

Actual Path

Predicted Path

The balloon reached 92,000 ft, something we didn’t expect. Part of the payload were two PocketLabs, one we had taking readings of altitude and accelerometer.  The other measured all the weather variables. You can find some of the information in the Google Folder.  A video was made to commemorate the event,  2018 Balloon Launch. 

Overall the event went well, but we are going to have to fix a couple of things. First the PocketLabs can record over 30,000 data points. Problem is that we didn’t set the sensors to take 1 reading per 2 or 5 minutes. Instead it took readings every half second. So it shut down too early. So reminder, change data point readings. Second, the Samsung 360 settings have to change so it can record better footage for stitching. Here is the final version of the 360 footage. And finally, we are going to let this be a student driven event. Meaning we are going to allow the students to pretty much take over the launch.

It was a great educational opportunity and we plan on having another launch next year.

Citizen Science Projects

Oh wow! Another blog entry! This time it’s about another project I having going on in class. I’m always looking for different ideas to use for class projects. If one works then I will use it again, if not I try others. This year I decided to use an idea one of my NASA colleagues has used in class; Citizen Science Projects. I really had never thought about this type of project before until I listened to this person give a discussion on the topic at an NSTA conference.

The reason I choose to do this project is because I believed that students should know more about what is happening in the science community and become informed citizens of science. I also like the environmental issues that some of the projects address. Different environmental issues are being addressed every day in the news, so I felt my students should understand the problems their generation will face. Which leads to a positive of this project, I have a good number of students working with the National Wildlife Foundations certified habitats. They are creating habitats that meet the criteria to become certified habitats by the NWF. Many of the groups are working with their parents to develop an area in their backyards to a “Garden for Wildlife” or “Wildlife Habitat”.  Another project a number of students are doing is Project Noah, a site that you post your spotting (pictures) of wildlife in your area.  The site allows a teacher to create a classroom and students can sign up. Through this site, the teacher can keep track of the student’s spottings. Students learn about different species from around the world and their scientific name for these species. I have taken part in this project and have posted some awesome pictures of animals. My username is rippie772011. I’ve enjoyed doing it too!

Project Noah is a tool to explore and document wildlife and a platform to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere

This has been such a success in class that I think I will be doing this again. I’ll give students a project survey at the end to see what I might have to do to improve the project. But overall I think it is going great. I’ve listed the various resources students used to pick their projects.

Project Noah: http://www.projectnoah.org/education: You will sign up under my classroom
Cornell Labs: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/citscitoolkit/about/definition
SETI: https://seti.berkeley.edu/
SciStarter: http://scistarter.com/index.html
Globe Observer: http://observer.globe.gov/
Hubble Telescope: http://hubblesite.org/get_involved/citizen_science/
National Geographic: http://nationalgeographic.org/idea/citizen-science-projects/
Zooniverse: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects?status=live
National Wildlife Federation: Certify your garden (this one you will need your parent’s help)- https://goo.gl/lNKQos
Globe Program: There are various readings and projects to do with this program. Please see the Teacher.
Museum of Natural Science- There are opportunities to work in labs. You need to see the Teacher for this.