Grant puts Warwick Neck students in control of robots

By Kelcy Dolan
Posted 6/23/16

For the past three weeks students at Warwick Neck Elementary School have been spending their afternoons with robots, coding them to move along specific paths, sending them throughout the halls and …

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Grant puts Warwick Neck students in control of robots

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For the past three weeks students at Warwick Neck Elementary School have been spending their afternoons with robots, coding them to move along specific paths, sending them throughout the halls and creating their own usable inventions.

Thanks to a $2,000 grant from the city’s Youth Program Task Force the school was able to purchase various STEM kits and tools for student use in a newly developed after school program.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays groups of 14 students gathered in the science room for an hour to use the new technology the school had acquired thanks to the grant.

Principal Patricia Cousineau has heard about the grant a few months ago and met with Katie Rendine, Barnes & Noble community business development manager, on the different technology available and what would be best suited for elementary aged students to learn.

Once the school’s proposal for a STEM-based after school program was approved, the school purchased the technology: one Dash Robot, which “brings STEM to life,” acclimating students to coding and robotics with a tiny programmable robot; two littleBits STEAM kits, which brings art, science and math together to let students create their own inventions, capable of performing small tasks; and three Ozobots, small programmable robots, young children can code by developing specific pathways using different colored instructional markers.

Rendine said, “In addition to coding, programming, technology literacy these tech toys aid in developing problem solving skills, critical thinking and teamwork.”

The program also borrowed an Osmo from one of the school’s teachers, which works alongside an iPad to play educational games.

“This is a way for us to bridge the gap between students’ love of learning and their love of new technology,” Cousineau said. “They are already whizzes with this stuff. We are changing education to fit what they already know and are used to. We are just having a great time with it.”

Mayor Scott Avedisian visited the school last Wednesday to see the progress students had made in their three weeks in the program. Students showed him the work they had done and all they were able to do with the new technology. Several students even tried to teach Avedisian how to code the Dash Robot using the iPad.

He mentioned that years ago with similar grants schools were told how they had to use the funds, which programs and curriculums they would have to institute, but sometimes those programs were ones students weren’t interested in or something that wasn’t necessary for a school.

By opening the grants to proposal, where schools were able to decide for themselves what would benefit their students most, students receive a program they are invested in and can enjoy.

“This is a way to make things happen in our schools that may not otherwise. Warwick Neck now has this technology they continue with this program year after year, decide to expand it or use it in the classrooms. Either way the students win,” Avedisian said.

Cousineau said they hope to expand the program and involve more students next year.

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