Sumo Robots Learn to Write:

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Sumo Robots Learn to Write

• Andrea C. Sledge, Central Washington University,
  Ellensburg, Washington, sledgea_at_cwu.edu
• James Hendricks, Southridge High School,
  Kennewick, Washington, Hendji.KSDMAIL.KSD1_at_ksd.org
  

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Project Sumo Robot
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Why?

• a high interest, high technology learning
  activity to high school students with career path
  interests in science and technology
• a high interest, high technology leaning activity
  to be disseminated for replication
• complex entry level skills and abilities
  presently used in the research and development
  industry

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• potential popularity of sumo robot competitions
  as sports in high school and
• an enriched experience for a teacher intern in
  the use of educational technology and
  interdisciplinary team teaching.

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Who?

• Secondary school teachers in two courses, Senior
  Engineering Technology and Language Arts,
  designed the curriculum.
• Seniors in these two courses
• The teacher intern provided instructional support
  and delivery over the course of an academic year.
  
• The university faculty supervised the teacher
  intern and collaboration with the classroom
  teachers through bi-monthly visits.

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What do the students do?

• complete a senior project for the Electrical
  Engineering course
• build mini sumo robots from basic electronic
  components
• program the robots and
• compete against other schools in mini sumo robot
  competitions.
• problem solve and troubleshoot to configure and
  design sumo robots for peak competitive
  performance and
• build skills looked for in entry-level electrical
  engineers.

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A mini sumo robot is

• a small, autonomous, mobile robot with infrared
  sensors located on the bottom of the chassis
• capable of traveling across a three-foot diameter
  circular arena called a dohyo (black surface
  with a 1 white perimeter
• built from simple off-the-shelf kits to elaborate
  custom-built machines with enormous
  microprocessor power and high torque motors

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What happens in a sumo robot match?

• When infrared light from the sumo robot is
  reflected from the white line, the sumo robot
  receives an input signal.
• The robots program will stop its drive wheel
  motors, back up, turn around, then travel forward
  again across the dohyo.
• Random collisions occur between the robot
  opponents, which lead to pushing matches.
• Eventually, one robot will push its opponent off
  the dohyo.

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The PT3 grant funded

• an interactive, computer assisted whiteboard for
  lesson presentation and idea development
• portable USB-connected hard drives to store and
  transfer large volumes of student movie data
  between classrooms
• basic electronic components for twenty mini sumo
  robot circuit fabrications
• the manufacture of twenty printed circuit boards
  by a commercial supplier and
• servomotors for twenty mini sumo robots and
• a video camera.

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The Engineering Technology Classroom
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Students completed a series of integrated
assignments

• detailed and individually written technical
  reports
• CAD drawings using 3-D parametric modeling
  software
• electronic schematic and printed circuit board
  development using industry standard software
• a promotional movie to highlight their product a
  web site containing all aspects of their
  research and
• a tournament between the secondary school
  students and engineers interested in robotics.

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A panoramic photo of the sumo robot competition.
Photo by Gabe Guillen
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In the Dohyo
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• The competing robots are placed on the arena.
• The designers simultaneously pressed the sumo
  robot start buttons at the command of the
  referee. (The robots were preprogrammed to start
  five seconds after the button was pressed.)
• When the robots began to move, music played over
  the loud speakers.
• The robots started to travel across the 36-inch
  diameter, black arena with a white line painted
  around the perimeter.

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• The robots eventually collided, and began pushing
  each other. Sometimes they got tangled and
  appeared to perform a dance.
• The referee had the authority to stop and restart
  the bout after 15 seconds of non-contact or
  entanglement.
• Eventually, one robot pushed the other off the
  arena.

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• Robots advanced through the tournament chart for
  the final battle between two finalists.
• The champion was determined after winning two out
  of three bouts. A team of secondary students won
  the tournament with their mini sumo robot named
  Shade.

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Shade, the winning sumo robot. Shade was built
by a team of two students from the Science and
Technology Academy.
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The Language Arts Classroom
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• The Science and Technology Academy is made up
  blocked classes with Language Arts and Science.
• The Senior Language Arts class played a major
  role in the sumo robot project in developing the
  documentation of the student-created technology.

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Types of Documentation

• technical writing
• creative writing
• movie making
• hypertext

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Sumo Robots Learned to Write

• a multimedia presentation of research
  (information collection, organization, and
  analysis)
• a parts list that included a technical
  description of each item
• editing of the Sumo Challenge document for
  language mechanics
• a lab book documenting the Sumo Robot design
  process
• four technical reports
• creative writing (short story, poem, jokes)

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• videos (instructional documentary, promotional
  music, trash talk)
• a sumo robot web site
• a business and marketing plan and public
  relations items (name, business cards,
  advertising flyer, video)
• research reports and creative writing in global
  studies, science, math social studies, music
  and
• multimedia presentations marketing student
  engineering skills.

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The Year-Long Teacher Intern the 1st year

• a Language Arts/Drama major
• participation in the Sumo Robot Project through
  the academys Language Arts class (one period
  daily)
• taught or co-taught the integrated assignments
  related to technology, such as the technical
  writing, poetry and movie creation during the
  quarter of her formal student teaching experience

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Screen capture image of an initial web page for
the web site about sumo robots.
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The University Faculty Member 1st year

• liaised with the participating teachers
• provided expertise in content area literacy
  (reading and writing to learn).
• supervised of the teacher intern before and
  during the student teaching term
• The faculty member observed the teacher intern
  every two weeks, on average.
• She was videotaped on a regular basis in the
  Language Arts class.

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STEPS

• Supervision of the teacher intern
• This software was used in the direct and
  video-taped observations of the intern.
• Behaviors were recorded as timed or tallied data.
  
• The software generated reports describing
  duration, frequency and sequence of behaviors.
• These data and related reports became one of the
  bases for feedback to the interns.

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The Collaboration Anomalies Challenges
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• The faculty members discipline was Literacy
  Education, with expertise in reading and writing
  in content fields.
• The year-long intern was a Drama and English
  Language Arts major -- no Technology Education
  pre-service teachers could participate, given
  their course schedules.
• The project was designed and scheduled for
  implementation prior to the high school joining
  the grant.

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• Inquiry learning was one of the instructional
  frameworks common to the Science and Technology
  Academy classes.
• Science and Technology Academy teachers were
  well-versed in engineering and/or instructional
  technologies, with instructional technology
  already a part of their curriculum design.
• The distance between the university and the
  project site

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Outcomes

• Curriculum Redesign Institutionalization of
  Technology Use
• The students in the Science and Technology
  Academy had a pre-existing interest in and
  comfort with technology.

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Advanced Technology Courtesy of PT3

• In the Engineering Technology class, students
  learned
• software programming
• designing and using printed circuit boards
• creating circuit schematics with Protel DXP
• editing code for microprocessors

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• creating technical drawings with SolidWorks and
  AutoCad
• creating animation movies with SolidWorks, Flash,
  Maya or other software
• creating video short films related to the sumo
  robot design or performance and
• designing web sites which incorporated the
  ProtelDXP schematic and circuit board designs,
  SolidWorks animations, and AutoCad and Rhino
  drawings.

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In Senior Language Arts, students

• enhanced their word processing and research
  skills
• created QuickTime movies as part of the
  Senior-to-Senior and college applications
  projects.

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The secondary teachers

• gained access to additional technology resources
• enhanced technologies that were part of their
  existing teaching practice microprocessor
  circuits for the sumo robots and provided small
  format videotaping equipment used for course
  video projects

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New Teacher Technology Enhancement

• The year-long intern participated in the Sumo
  Robot project through the Science and Technology
  Academy Senior English/Language Arts class
  (students designed the robots).
• She learned, in support of the senior projects in
  the English course and the technical writing of
  the Sumo Robot project design and competition
• how to use small format videotaping equipment
• how to create QuickTime movies
• The PT3 grant purchased a laptop computer for her
  use during the course of her participation in the
  grant.

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Faculty Technology Enhancement

• The faculty member learned
• STEPS, the observational software used as part of
  the supervision of the teacher intern
• how to use small format videotaping equipment
• The PT3 grant provided a laptop computer on which
  this software resided.
• An additional research project is planned using
  the STEPS software to record and analyze tutor
  behaviors in pre- and in-service literacy
  courses. She learned

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Second-Year Accomplishments and Problems
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At Southridge High School

• The Sophomore Engineering Technology class was
  the new context for the design of sumo robots.
• Students and staff continued to use the
  educational technology acquired with PT3 funding
  on a daily basis.
• The PT3 project work gathered momentum with
  technology design updates and more dissemination
  resulting in more students and teachers involved
  from other schools.
• Some seniors involved in the first year of
  Project Sumo Robot and for the Engineering
  Technology teacher had summer internships in
  industry.

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At the University

• No PT3 teacher intern involved in Project Sumo
  Robot
• Efforts to link university courses with the
  Science and Technology Academy
• The university faculty member spoke to the
  Science and Technology Academy teachers to
  identify learning activities for which they
  wanted development support.
• The idea was that secondary teaching majors, as
  part of their course requirements for a reading
  in content fields course, would design activities
  that addressed these activities.

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• Sophomore and Senior Language Arts teachers
  identified several potential projects. (Only one
  of these related directly to Science and
  Technology The Perfect School, a
  collaboration between the Drafting and Sophomore
  Language Arts classes.).
• As part of the requirements of the pre-service
  reading course, student teams designed
  Problem-Based Leaning (PBL) units.

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• Students were grouped by content areas that
  related to each of the teacher-identified
  projects and were assigned to a quarter-long
  project. They included aforementioned The
  Perfect School, college selection investigation,
  independent study of novels, conditioning
  programs for cheer squads, and enrichment English
  programs for gifted students.
• At the end of the quarter, these PBL units were
  submitted to the teachers for their review and
  feedback.

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Conclusions

• Sumo robots learned to write as they learned
  to move.
• High school engineering technology students
  learned design skills that were relevant to
  industry.
• High school engineering students used writing for
  multiple career-related purposes.

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• Technology supported the acquisition of both sets
  of knowledge, skills, and abilities in authentic
  contexts.
• The strategy of just-in-time technology training
  provided a teacher intern with competencies to
  carry into her own classroom, and provided the
  university faculty with a methodology to enhance
  supervision of preservice and inservice teachers
  in tutoring and classroom contexts.