Canton Intermediate School Students Practice Mind Over LEGOs

After a full day of school Friday, Canton Intermediate School students from the Robotics Team hunched over tiny laptops on the floor of a Bristol elementary school gym, programming their LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robots to traverse a marked course.

Working in teams of three or four students, they offered suggestions to each other on program adjustments when the robot veered off course. Parents and siblings sat on the sidelines watching as the teams raced against each other to direct their robot to complete the course the fastest, but with total accuracy.

This was the first time the 14 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders on the CIS Robotics Club and the 14 Greene-Hills School students participated in a robotics competition.

Canton School’s Lisa Deltano, the K-6 Math & Science coordinator, has been volunteering her time after school weekly to instruct and guide the CIS students on how to use LEGO MINDSTORMS to manipulate the robots. The systems were purchased with funds raised by the CIS Parent Teacher Organization.

The programmable robots enhance the school’s science, math and technology curriculum, Deltano said. Students learn to compromise, problem-solve and communicate in order to complete a challenging task which they design, she said.

"You had to work as a team and listen to one another,” she told the eight teams.

 The competition also included programming their robots to complete a more creative task, such as throwing a ball through a hoop, kicking a ball through a goal or picking up an object. Some students made their robot dance or shout, which brought laughs as well as cheers.

“You all did a great job. Congratulations to all of you,” Greene-Hill School Principal Scott Gaudet told the 28 students before awarding medals. Students were evaluated on how far and accurately their robot traveled on the course and the creativity behind the freestyle task, he said.

The CIS students on the first-place team, Tommy Deal, grade 6, Nathaniel Marofsky, grade 5 and James Pelehach, grade 4, said they really enjoy playing with the LEGO robot.

The biggest challenge, Tommy said, was calculating for the fact that the paper “track” moved and was not completely flat. “It could slide,” he said.

The second-place team, CIS sixth graders, Lexi Benoff, Brian Barger and Patrick Currier, programmed their robot to throw a ball at a target and say “hello” and “have a nice day.”

Brian explained how students use science and math to “calculate all the terms and all the degrees that you have to make your robot turn to do certain things,” he said. “I had to apply the math I had already learned in school. I had to learn the technology part of it.”

Greene-Hill students placed third. They are Deklan Zukowski, Hunter Peterson, Adam Chawner and Tahir Aslan.

Dr. Jordan Grossman, CIS principal, thanked the PTO for funding the equipment and Deltano for volunteering her time. Programming the robots develops and strengthens skills in technology, science and math, he said. “To be able to form a partnership with a neighboring town was even better.”