At the end of September, Cornwall High School teachers Eric Holzapple and Jacques Ponsolle attended a workshop at Orange County BOCES. As parting gifts, they each received an Edison robot to use in their computer and technology classes.
The workshop taught the two dozen participants, from various disciplines, how the robot works and how it could be used in the classroom.
The robot itself is simplistic in appearance. It looks like a box car on wheels. Users can purchase add-ons so they can program the robot to perform other tasks. It’s also compatible with Legos blocks.
“It’s a robot which actually has some versatility,” Holzapple said. “It has three different programs that you can use depending on how skilled you are at coding.”
Edison can read barcodes to perform a variety of pre-programed functions such as avoid obstacles or stay within the lines of a shape drawn on a piece of paper. Two or more robots are capable of sumo wrestling against each other.
So far, Ponsolle has used the barcodes to demonstrate the robot in his classes, but he and Holzapple are waiting for approval to purchase about a dozen more robots. The goal is to have enough robots for students to work in pairs. Add-ons will also be purchased with the hope of utilizing the robot’s full range of capabilities as part of a final collaborative project.
What that final project is will depend on what add-ons can be purchased. The initial idea is to have Ponsolle’s technology students build the robot to complete a specific task. Holzapple’s computer science class will be responsible for programming the robot to complete the task by writing the code and uploading the instructions.
During the workshop, a giant printout of a town was created and the robot was instructed to navigate the streets. Using code, the robot can be programmed to stop at signs and lights, as well as make turns. This requires measuring the length of streets and distance to traffic control devices.
“That’s going to take days to get the exact coding and timing,” Holzapple said. “We were in tenths and hundredths of a second when we were doing that process.”
He added it could take weeks and a lot of trial and error to write the correct code.
The process will not only provide the students with a valuable tool in a technology-heavy society, it will teach them problem solving skills, as well as perseverance.
