What I
learnt from my Trip to Carnegie Mellow Robotics Institute
The National Robotics Institute of Engineering and robotics
centre is a Branch of Carnegie Mellon University and is located in Pittsburgh. It is a world leader in robotics education,
research and product development. Since
its inception in 1979 it has been ranked in the top 5 in the world for robotics
research and product development. They
build robotics products for NASA, like
the Mars Rover,and the US military, like the Dragon Runner, which is an
autonomous military robot that can be thrown into a building to provide
surveillance. the As a self-proclaimed
geek who religiously reads magazines like Wired, Engadget and Popular Science
it has been my dream to visit this mecca of all things “cool” for a long time
now. And my trip did not disappoint…..but
not for the reasons I had first hoped for.
When we sign up for Professional development sessions whether
it is a 1 hour talk or a week long workshop like mine, we often have
preconceived hopes and expectations of what we want to learn. However, within the first few hours and days
of my journey to Pittsburgh it became clear that mine trip to Carnegie Mellon
was not really about robots.
When I arrived at the Calgary Airport at 6am Sunday Morning a
huge storm had engulfed Calgary and surround area causing the airport to be
shut down. Sadly, flights were delayed
and even cancelled, including my flight to Pittsburgh. My first German instinct was to line up like
hundreds of other stranded passengers and demand to be put on the next flight
out. However, after a soothing latte I
thought better and headed back home leaving the chaos behind to collect my
thoughts and figure out what would be my next move. When I got home, much to the surprise of my
family, I had received an email from Air Canada saying they had put me on
another flight at midnight. After great
patience and some resiliency traveling through the night, I arrived at Carnegie
Mellon Institute only a few hours late for my first session.
Little did I know that my experience at the airport was
foreshadowing for what I was to encounter in my workshop. Because I entered the session late, teachers
were already working on programing their robot for their first of many
challenges. The workshop was very
hands-on and it allowed us to use the robots to complete increasingly complex
tasks. But, upon reflecting on what I
was doing it became clear to me that what
I was really learning when working on my own and with teams was how to problem
solve. Coding and programing robots to
complete complex functions consists of trial and error, fortitude and patience. Learning the code and building the robots was
stress-free when working with colleagues.
Getting the robot to actually
execute each of the challenges was sometimes frustrating and
time-consuming. This is exactly what
happens to my students in design class.
As you can see from this short video, nothing ever works the first time,
when programming.
Although my job is to
teach them coding my bigger job is to teach them ATL skills like resilience and perseverance.
One tool to help students with learning by failure is Robot
Virtual Worlds. This online platform
enables students to work through various programming challenges in a simulation
type environment. Some students a
willing to take more risks if someone is not watching them. Robot Virtual world has a variety of
different games and challenges which increase in complexity and scope. Student receive feedback as they move through
various levels and stages of the challenge.
My favorite is Beltway High-rise whereby competitors have to travel
around the game board the stack blocks to building a high-rise tower using
various motors and sensors.
Although I had intentions of heading to Pittsburgh to learn
all I could about Robotics, after spending some time touring around, I also
quickly realized that I learnt far more than what I had first imagined. For example, I learnt that in some places in
the world, CHURCHES CAN INCLUDE BEER.
This is a picture of the famous Church Brew Pub. I was an old Catholic church that was
converted to a brewery. I don’t know
about you but I personally would attend mass more often if this was a staple at
my local church.
Like church and beer, it also became clear to me that
robotics education is more than learning to program and code. There are a host of other disciplines that
are needed for students to excel at solving problems using robots. Firstly, when learning to write code,
students need to ensure they use something called pseudocode which helps them
organize their ideas, commands and functions.
If a there is a problem associated with your programming, finding it can
be difficult, unless you are using pseudocode.
Secondly, students need a strong understanding of math principles. For example, in order to program the robot
to travel a specific distance, students can calculate the circumference of the
tires and use ratios to solve for any distance.
In conclusion, I went to Carnegie Mellon to learn more about
robots, but came home realizing I learnt so much more. Robots, like any other technology is another
tool that we use to teach 21st century skills like communication and
problem solving. That
said, technology is here to stay in our world, it affects everyone and every
industry whether it be movies, phones, medicine, or politics. Frank Levy and Richard Murnane,
in their book titled “Dancing with Robots”, make the argument that all schools
should be teaching programming as a tool to solve problems as our future will
depend on it.
