Report on the first meeting of the project “Robots ‘R Us” at Aust-lofoten Videregaende Skole from 1st October to 5th October 2018
Arrival of the German group in the evening at their accommodations as the flight was postponed: three beautiful wood cabins, everybody just dropped the bags and we went to the Austlofoten Videregaende Skole for dinner. Marte and Gisle and their team had prepared a very tasteful dinner for us with salmon and vegetables which we enjoyed very much. On the first working day, the school was shown to us, especially the Newton room that we would use the next day. The other subject matters had to be postponed to the next day.
After the long travelling day we were happy to go back to our cabins and relax.
We met at the auditorium at Aust-lofoten Videregaende Skole where Susanne Auer showed a short film about possible robot application in industry or metal mechanics in order to inspire the student for possible robot applications.
- then wrote down their ideas about possible robot applications and functions on metaplan cards and collected them on the wall for further discussion in the afternoon.
For a first evaluation students put glue dots on their favourite ideas.
Then in the Newton room students built a vehicle with a lift arm, each in international 3 member groups of three students. They got the instructions and parts and just started to put the vehicle together. After that Marthe-Anne showed them how to programme the vehicle for different movements.
In a competition the nine groups of students realised that different tasks for robots are quite hard to program and that only a change in the position on the test field can lead to very different outcomes of performance. The international groups, however, worked very committedly together and developed an extraordinary team spirit.
After the competition the students and teachers went back to the auditorium to reduce the ideas for robots to feasible ideas and to find a robot idea to work on for the whole project. After another evaluation with glue points and some discussion two most interesting concepts remained, one dealing with robots in catering for pouring drinks, the other one a concept of a robot which in some way or the other helped to clean the ocean or the beaches.
With the following interim decision the groups finished the day:
The following robot as a task was agreed upon:
- A robot that can detect objects
- It can distinguish between parts or things that should stay on the beach (pebble, crabs, algae etc.)
- … and rubbish like plastics, paper and aluminium
- … and carry the parts to the rubbish disposal area
- some of the rubbish found will be used for recycling and reused for robot parts
- a robot device has to lift the object up and carry it
The students will build a parcour which has the features of a stretch of beach with sandy parts (not loose, not wet) and stoney areas.
- 4 robots will be built in international teams => one teacher at each school is the tutor of one robot
In the morning the students presented their results on the ICT survey. The overall result can be summed up in the following way: All ICT skills that have to do with the private use of ICT skills all students are quite familiar with all techniques like the use of google and social media, the experience with presentation tools, however, is very different, for example, in Spanish and German students. While German students have little or no experience with Power Point, almost all Spanish students have a very sound experience with this tool.
All in all the students realised that the survey on ICT that had been chosen to initiate the evaluation process on ICT skills does not reflect ALL the skills the students will need in order to solve the robot task.
Susanne Rielage then organised and collected the additional skills the students will develop when working on the robots. The survey will be expanded by these additional skills. The extended list of skills which will be evaluated in 2020:
- Sharing documents on a team platform
- Coding (Lego or Arduino)
- Using Skype for international information exchange
- Designing a robot with the help of CAD
- Working with different programmes
- Using a 3-D printer
- Searching for specific information on automation
- CAM skills
- Open-code platform (MAKER)
- Creating a homepage
- Knowledge in mechanical engineering
- Knowledge about materials
- Knowledge about sensors (function, application)
The first sketches of possible robot constructions were produced by the students in groups and presented their ideas to the forum.
In the second part of the day the students from Spain, Finland and Germany presented their home towns to the audience. The geographical differences and population varieties became apparent and students were impressed how different all these backgrounds of students were. It became apparent that three participating countries are situated by the ocean and have beaches so that this subject matter has to be taken into account when deciding about robot applications.
Then Susanne Auer presented the results about truancy and school drop-outs on the basis of a survey that has been done all over Germany over 4 years time.
In a forum discussion teachers and students discussed possible solutions to this problems. Marte Lundberg presented three schemes in Norway, the TTT, FFF and FYR concepts. The schemes are as follows:
In the following discussion in which students and teachers took part more solutions were developed by the participating people:
At the IES one important method is to integrate the parents more into school activities so that they see the importance of education and taking part in school and lessons. This is a concept that works for the secondary schools taking part (IES Puerto del Rosario and Austlofoten-Videregaende Sckole), but doesn’ t work for the LHB and EKAMI because when students are older than 16 not many parents are very interested in their children’s school life anymore.
Students were of the opinion that truants just don’t want to get up in the morning and that they are just lazy or want to earn money, but survey showed that this wasn’t the reason in many cases of truancy. Marte Lundberg emphasised that their scheme also includes the effort to give students a good time at school so that they like to be there, and that this works for students in Norwegain schools and their students like to go to school.
The personal relationship between students and teachers, as mentioned in the German study, was then discussed among the forum participants. Marte Lundberg emphasised that the type of teacher had a great influence on the success of teaching. She reported from a teacher seminar that there were three types of teachers: the authoritarian, the authortive, the caring and the non-caring teacher. Among all these the second type, the authorative one was the most successful, because he had a good student teacher relationship, and still demands performance and commitment from their students while the other ones were either too strict or too loose and praise everything the students do so that it doesn’t value anymore.
In contrast to the German study the Spanish and German students were of the opinion that punishment does help to “motivate” students to go to school, while the Spanish teachers were of the opinion that it is necessary to help students manage their school work and then they would raise their self-esteem. It would be important that the teacher supports the students. This happens when teachers rely on their students and a good teacher student relationship exists. The Spanish students underlined it and added that mutual respect was most important.
The challenge in a teacher was that you have to have a good relationship, teach them and have a high expectation but also evaluate the students at the end.
The idea to employ project work for all subjects instead of teaching single subjects was rejected by all students. They preferred some small projects once in a while but wanted to keep subjects, otherwise they would not be able to learn everything needed for their exams. Because when splitting tasks not everyone would learn everything!
Project work, however, was considered to be very fruitful in gaining more ideas to solve problems, to meet new people and get to know more methods and approaches to learning. It was emphasised that project work raises more personal interest, more motivation and less pressure. And if the project meets your interest it is fun.
The aspect of old teachers, as mentioned in the German survey, was also mentioned by the German teachers. The German students emphasised that the youngest teacher they have been taught by was able to establish the best relationship they have to their teachers.
The question, however, whether same interests between teachers and students are important was negated by the students.
04.10.2018
In the morning the students attended a Newton room laboratory work about energy generation and electricity. Especially renewable forms of energy were dealt with and tested in the laboratory. Models of wind turbines, solar panels and water energy were tested and tried out in the Newton laboratory.
During this laboratory work the teachers met in another room to discuss the work structures of the projects and the next steps of the project.
The next meeting in Spain was fixed for Monday 21 January to Friday 25 of January.
Raquel presented Twin Space as the platform for the project. It is a private space in which students can share information without it being able to be read by the public.
All results have to be uploaded to twin space, regularly, also results for technical problems that have been solved, problems can be solved on a problem blog, things which are interesting for the work groups.
Best results and interesting information will be uploaded on Facebook and/or Instagram etc., they have to decide what will be published publically => outward appearance of the page.
On Twin Space we upload links to YouTube videos instead of films.
The groups have to find a name and a logo. The present students are experts for recruiting more students at each school.
The next meeting has to be fixed and tasks for in between times (see Gisle file)
Teachers decide on the different missions for the robots in the course of the project, the evaluation of the robots at the end presentation will be made like the point system in the Newton room competition.
The obstacles on the playground, the parkour, will be decided upon, it will be roughly 2x3 m.
There will also be points for the presentation (aspects see Gisle file). The students have to write a documentary diary during all processes
- The robot platform will be Arduino, after Christoph, Peter and Susanne had presented the advantages of this system
- By 9th November all students have to register to the e-twinning platform with an introduction, a team name, report on the processes, which accounts etc.
- the teachers’s skype meeting will be on 14.11. 18 at 15:00 h (German time), in order to discuss the working progress of the teams
In the afternoon teachers and students learnt about plastic litter and concepts how to reduce the waste in the water by Malin Jacob from Salt. She showed us that the plastic parts are very tiny parts that are eaten by fish and birds which kills them. That plastic parts sponge toxic pcb and she asked the students to use plastics for their robots which are recyclable plastic.
The second presentation was done by Per-jarle Skulstad from Lofotkraft who showed us the ways electricity is distributed in the grid in Norway and how the structure will change in the future when household not only receive electricity but also feed unused amounts into the grid, because it cannot be stored in the house. He asked the students to consider conditions in which the robots are working for choosing the right energy source. Therefore intelligent grid management is needed and being developed.
The third presentation was about materials for robotic building, especially composite materials. These are extremely light-weight in comparison with other plastics or materials and can be tailored to the work they have to provide for in a machine or robot.
In the evening teachers and students met in the school hall to rehears a little performance that will be shown in the morning break of the school.
Friday, 5th October
All groups met at the auditorium at Austlofoten Videregaende Skole.
The groups started to work on work structures, collected some further ideas and tried out the skype conferences so that they would work when we are all back in Germany, Spain and Finland. At the end of the day an evaluation of the whole working week was done in the auditorium. All aims and the work process itself were evaluated in a xxx from 0-3. As you can see in the photo, the vast majority of students were sure that they had reached a level of 2 or 3. Those aspects which were not reached to satisfaction (see photo of challenges: better sketches for the robots, more precise ideas, plastics must be more considered/possible alternatives found, will be worked on more in the next meeting.
The aspect of motivating students to stay in the project/at school must be dealt with more thoroughly.
Last working day – 6th October:
On Saturday some students went on a hiking tour in the mountains where it had just snowed (see picture). A tour to see the eagles hunting for fish (see photo), a fishing trip (see photo) and a bus tour to the beaches of the Lofoten taught the students the importance of environmental protection of the ocean and the beaches and emphasised the need to build a robot which considers these aspects. On bus trips around the Lofoten the groups examined the Lofoten beaches and informed themselves about stranded plants and objects (see photo).
Sunday, 07 October 2018:
Between Saturday and Monday the visiting groups went home.