Sixth graders show their robotics knowledge at Capitol

NOVI — Four Novi Meadows Elementary School sixth graders had the opportunity to demonstrate their robotics knowledge to legislators and business leaders in Lansing during the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning Student Technology Showcase at the Michigan State Capitol Dec. 4.

According to the event website, the showcase provides the opportunity for lawmakers, business leaders and citizens to see how technology is used in classrooms across the state. Each team at the showcase had four students and one adult mentor.

Novi Meadows applied and was selected to be one of approximately 25 schools in the state to participate in the showcase, as Novi Meadows has a unique sixth grade robotics program. Novi Meadows sixth graders all rotate through a nine-week robotics course as a special class similar to art, music and physical education.

“We took these particular students to show off the investment that the community of Novi has made in the robotics program in Novi Schools, and also to show off the talent of these particular  students,” said Tom Michalski, sixth grade robotics teacher at Novi Meadows.

He said he chose the four students to attend the event on their ability and level of precision in programming.

Michalski said the students did two things during the event. They presented their program that they made during their robotics class, and “even cooler,” they were teaching people at the showcase  how to program the robot.

“So they taught everyone from other students how to program, all the way to some big shot from AT&T,” he said.

“The kids were teaching him how to use the robot. They have no idea who he is. They didn’t really care. He was just another person to teach how to program the robot too.”

That person was the president of AT&T Michigan, David Lewis. Lewis gave the opening speech and spoke with the various teams.

“We showed him how to make a program. We also showed him our final program, Robot Dance Party. We wanted to make it in sync (to dance). We would time the waypoints … to time it just right” to move with the music,” said Derek Shi, one of the four sixth grade students from Meadows.

The  various teams representing grades K-12 demonstrated things related to technology including robotics and block coding. Sixth grader Quentin Gedeon said he thought it was cool to see how one team used micro:bits to make a robot that drives around.

Unlike most robotics programs at the sixth grade level, Novi Meadows kids learn to operate a true industrial robot, not just Legos. According to Michalski, Novi Meadows is the only non-high school or college team to be using these types of robots in the country. He said the target age range for the robots is age 16-22.  He said this made his students the “stars of the show by far.”

“People can’t believe that 11-year-olds are operating these things, but it just speaks of the quality of students and the quality of families that we have here in the Novi community that our students can not only operate these (robots), but learn so many of the technical skills that go along with it,” Michalski said.

The students learn to operate and program a Universal Robots UR3D. Essentially the robot is a robotic arm, which is outfitted with a gripper at the end. Universal Robots is a Danish company with an office in Novi, which is very supportive of the school program, according to Michalski.

In Lansing, the students showed their final exam piece titled “Dance Party 2.0.” The students selected a song and programmed the robot to sync up with the song. They demonstrated various things they learned during the class.

“Essentially it was a robot dancing, but also picking up a block and then throwing it into a bucket, which doesn’t sound that impressive, but if you saw the program actually do it, the robot picking up this block and throwing it into this small bucket, every single time people saw them throwing the little block into the bucket, people’s jaws would drop,” Michalski said. “No matter who it was, young or old, they would all have the same reaction. Like, ‘Woah. I can’t believe it just did that.’ So, yeah, a dancing, block-throwing program — that doesn’t do it justice, I’m telling you.”

Quentin said that he has always liked coding and has been doing Sqratch, a programming language and website, for years.

“It’s fun seeing our robot move and dance to the beat,” Quentin said.

“I just find it fun, seeing the robot move and knowing the actual code that did that,” he said.

Quentin said that it took them months to learn how to create a program, but once they learned it, they were able to make the specific program that they showed off at the event in the course of a week.

Quentin and Derek both said they enjoyed the experience, especially explaining to others how to program the robot. Quentin said that he thought it was really cool and that he believes the adults enjoyed it as well.

“What it really comes down to is, beyond the fancy technology, it’s so cool to see an 11-year-old stop, take a breath and actually think for a second about what comes next, ‘What do I need to do next,’” Michalski said. “Block coding or any other type of coding is really sequential thinking. ‘What do I need to do next? OK, that didn’t work, let’s try this, and let’s try it again.’ So those are really the skills that when you strip away the fancy technology, that’s what robotics is all about, is teaching those durable skills that we don’t know what those jobs in the future are going to look like, but that type of thinking, that logical, sequential, problem-solving, persistent thinking, that’s what’s really cool about the robotics program at Novi Meadows.”

Michalski said he is in his first year of teaching robotics at the school, but he has taught math and science in the district for 23 years. He said it is so much fun to teach robotics, because the kids “just absolutely love it” and want to stay longer to learn more.

The kids said that Michalski is funny and makes learning fun. They said they like that he lets them choose their own seats and they didn’t expect to be teaching robots to dance and flying drones.

“We’re either playing with robots or flying drones. Basically we’re playing with toys all day. So it’s fun,” Michalski said.