Extension Communications
3614 Administrative Services Building
Ames, Iowa 50011-3614
(515) 294-9915
2/28/01
Contacts:
Steven Truby, Extension-Science, Engineering and Technology,
(515) 294-2078, struby@iastate.edu
Barbara Parrish, ISU Extension, (319) 266-3260, parrish@iastate.edu
Tracy S. Petersen, Continuing Education and Communication
Services, (515) 294-9915
ISU Extension Program Helps Students Win National Science Contest
DECORAH, Iowa -- A seventh and eighth grade class at North Winneshiek Community School is the grand prizewinner of the 2000 Classroom Robotix Competition.
The students and their teacher, Brigitta Meade, will receive an expense-paid trip for three days and two nights to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The school will receive a Robotix Classroom System worth $2,000 and an award certificate signed by NASA Apollo 13 astronaut Fred W. Haise, Jr. "It was really fun being able to tell the students. They were so excited," said Jamie Dow of Learning Curve International in Chicago.
The contest required the students to use the Robotix system to design and build a mobile robot that would clear the northern lowland of Mars in preparation for the construction of a new community. The classroom to clear the greatest amount of debris from the grid in the shortest amount of time won. While most schools took 5 minutes or longer, Meade's students completed the task in about 3 1/2 minutes.
Meade's all-seventh grade class placed second in the competition. That class will receive an award certificate signed by a NASA astronaut, classroom Robotix equipment and a Robotix kit for each student. The all-eighth grade class received honorable mention and Robotix kits for each student.
"I used Robotix last year," Meade said. "The kids thought it was a blast and I could see that they learned a lot about technological design. This year the kids starting begging for Robotix, then I heard about the contest so they started working in October. They worked for two and a half weeks building the Robotix and the landscape of Mars."
Meade participated in the 1999 Iowa Science Teachers Conference held in Des Moines and taught by Steven Truby, ISU Extension youth initiative specialist with the Extension-Science, Engineering and Technology (E-SET) Program. Robotix: Roving on Mars is a collaborative project of ISU Extension and E-SET. The Iowa Space Grant Consortium and E-SET provided funding for the project.
More than 20,000 youth experienced at least one program from the E-SET materials during 1998-1999.
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