Legos take on a new life as student-built robots
By Leigh Ann Maze
Los Gatos students don't just play with Legos, they create elaborate, motorized devices using special Lego components, such as gears, motors, lights, sound and sensors. Many of the Lego machines the students build are interfaced with a computer, which the students themselves must program to operate their machine.
Some Los Gatos students in the 4th through 12th grades have participated in local Lego-based classes called Computerized Robotics, taught by Kristine North, a credentialed educational consultant. North teaches these classes throughout the Santa Cruz and Santa Clara County areas. In Los Gatos, North teaches her classes through the Loma Prieta Independent Home Study Program, the Los Gatos Union School District GATE seminars, the Los Gatos-Saratoga Department of Community Education and Recreation. and Oakgrove Independent Home Study.
Some students, like Daniel Young and Matt Casas, both 11, assembled a Lego gondola with a push-button start. The gondola travels up the cable and automatically reverses its direction of travel as it reaches a light sensor at the end of the cable.
At Blossom Hill Elementary School, three girls built a Lego house with a remote garage door opener, a temperature controlled fan and a doorbell. A student team in the LGUSD GATE program transformed their Lego fan project into a Ferris wheel complete with swinging chairs and tiny Lego people riding in them.
At the introductory level, other students have created motorized carousels, billboards and cranes using Legos. Students in North's intermediate classes create elevators, gondolas and race cars. The more advanced students have built more complex Lego machines, such as robot arms, a greenhouse and a vending machine. The more difficult projects take about 10 to 12 hours to complete, while the beginning projects usually take students about four hours. North said her classes allow students to apply scientific, mathematical and mechanical concepts, as well as problem solving skills.
New classes will begin at the end of September. For more information, call 831.429.6588.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
