Community Outreach
Technical Robotics Mentors
Robotics Outreach at Lincoln Laboratory (ROLL) members are full-time scientists and engineers at Lincoln Laboratory who volunteer their time in an effort to share their excitement for the fascinating fields of science, engineering, and robotics. Robotics mentors are available for school and classroom visits. ROLL members often serve as coaches for Lincoln Laboratory robotics teams and may be contacted by groups in search of a robotics mentor for middle-school and high-school students.
Volunteers can serve as a point of contact to answer questions on an as-needed basis, and are happy to stop by a classroom or scout troop to present demonstrations, explain the fundamentals of robotics, or help prepare for robotics competitions.
Looking for a student robotics team to join?
Check your regional contact here.
Examples of ROLL's past presentations, demonstrations, and involvement with community and local schools are provided below for elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools.
Hands On Robotics Demonstrations
Elementary School
Presented to 60 2nd graders, as well as local cub scout troops, and for the Cambridge Science Festival booth in 2010. ROLL helped teach students the concepts of programming and robotics by developing role-playing games requiring one student to be the robot and follow specific instructions, while other students played the part of the programmers, supplying instructions to the robot one step at a time, and introducing the idea of "looping," indicating a sequence of instructions that is continually repeated until a certain condition is reached. The idea of looping was conveyed by having the kids act as a dish-washing robot, noting that if there were still dishes to be washed, the robot should start over at the first instruction and follow the same routine as before.
Introduction to Robotics Presentation (15 min): Interactive presentation introduces the students to the parts of a robot, compares real robots with science fiction robots, and shows a video of robots playing soccer.
Dishwashing Robot - 6 roles (robot, programmer, processor, dishwasher, rinser, dryer) Students put together a deck of cards to program a robot to wash the dishes (go, pick up dish, wash, rinse, dry, put down dish, stop). The robot is played by one fo the students or by the teacher who purposely only does what the cards say. We introduce the idea of a programming loop by connecting the deck of cards using a wire loop. This way the stack of dirty dishes will eventually be turned into a stack of clean dishes using the one small deck of cards. This is always a favorite as evidenced by letters received after demonstrations. Here are a few samplings:
"I had fun being the robot. I wish we could do it again." -Kobe
"I learned that robots have to have programs and computers. I had fun when I had to do commands." – Kaylee
"I had so much fun at the center, because of when you got to be a dishwasher, and you could be broken." –William
"Some day I will build a robot!" –Thomas
Mystery hunt - 6 roles (2 robots, 2 programmers, 2 processors) students use the deck of cards to program the robot to use his sensors to find hidden items. The two robots then run at the same time to see who can find the mystery object first.
Robot Dancer: Students control a robot using rhythmic claps. Students form a circle around the robot. The robot can be a simple tri-bot or the Mindstoroms Scorpion. The robot is programmed to constantly move forward with a slight turn and responds to audible sounds by switching turn direction. Start with all students quiet and aim the robot at one student and ask him to clap his hands. The robot will "home in" on the student. Try other students and note how the robot responds better to a loud clap.
What if the kids are too noisy? It responds to claps from all directions. The clap can be made louder or you can ask the kids to be quiet. (Teaching signal to noise ratio). The teacher can also ask the students to cooperate and get the robot to go to a goal. This task is fun because it doesn't work unless one kid is allowed to control the robot, or all students clap to a rhythm.
Middle School
This program was given at a minority STEM camp, and at Daughters and Son's Day at the Laboratory. Students break up into groups and rotate through the different stations.
Holonomic Drive FTC Demo: How will robots turn to face you while moving in any direction? This hands on demonstration will explain the physics behind holonomic drive systems using omni wheels from an FTC robot. This program was given at the 2010 Cambridge Science Festival.
Start-up assistance: ROLL has also assisted a high school teacher beginning a robotics program by registering with the National Girls Collaborative Project, which helped the teacher acquire a mini-grant for the program. Once funding began, two ROLL vounteers served as mentors.
Assistive Technology: A physics class was tasked with engineering a solution to some problem facing a disabled person in the community. Each group chose a person in the community, decided on a problem they could solve, and worked with the person to create a solution. ROLL provided volunteers and offered direction when needed. A portfolio of research, a functional prototype, and a poster presentation were presented at the Assistive Technology Design Fair hosted by the UMass Lowell. Two ROLL volunteers were able to see the final presentations at the Fair. A year later, ROLL helped with this same task, this time, mentoring a total of 45 students divided into 13 groups.