October
24, 2003
MHC
Students Teach Robotics at Local School
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Photo: Orin Hoffman
Deepikaa
Menon ’07 and Suchi Saria ’04 work with middle
school students
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Members of Mount Holyoke's Society for Physics
Students (SPS) and Computer Science Club have joined forces this
fall to bring their robotics expertise to the students of Michael
E. Smith Middle School in South Hadley. According to Orin Hoffman,
laboratory director of the physics department and adviser to the
student group, the outreach program is the latest development
in a two-year relationship between the SPS and the middle school.
As part of the outreach effort, Mount Holyoke
students attended a training seminar at MHC and will spend an
hour every afternoon at the middle school helping students learn
to design robots using Lego Mindstorms. Mindstorms look like ordinary
Legos but have programmable electronics embedded inside the Lego
bricks, allowing students with little technical background to
create extraordinary robotic creations. This year's after-school
program, led by Suchi Saria '04, challenges students to create
robots that are capable of extinguishing a fire.
The project will culminate in a robotics competition
this winter in Kendade Hall, the College's new science center.
"They can come up with anything that works," Saria said.
"Maybe the robot will be able to sense light and heat, or
pop a balloon filled with sand on the fire."
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Photo: Orin Hoffman
MHC
students hone their robotics skills in preparatory seminar
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Last year Mount Holyoke physics major Becky Barlow
'05 and this year's SPS president Elizabeth Fenstermacher '04
led an after-school program helping middle school students build
solar-powered cars. In addition, the SPS does physics demonstrations
and other activities at the middle school.
"Outreach is totally voluntary," Hoffman
explained. "The students do whatever projects they want with
the kids."
"There is great satisfaction in mentoring
the middle school students, especially in connecting with middle
school girls. Mount Holyoke students are showing them that women
do participate successfully in the sciences, and that scientists
can have a lot of fun," Hoffman said. "Our students
get immediate feedback that what they're doing is immensely valuable.
I think there is great value and satisfaction in giving back to
the community some of the education they've received."
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