When it bumps into her, she turns from a group of students to see what has hit her.
“You’re not supposed to run over the teacher,” she jokes.
Most teachers would be upset if students were playing with cars during class, but Stidinger’s students were using this special model car to learn about computer programming. The robotic Lego cars, the laptops, and software were all provided by a grant from IBM through the Partnering with IBM in Education program.
Communities In Schools (CIS) partnered Robbins Elementary with the IBM program. CIS brings schools together with volunteers, community organizations and businesses, to provide funding and mentors.
Kathy Byron, vice chairwoman of CIS in Moore County, and other volunteers spent the day helping the children put together the cars.
“The children have been working on programming and building the robots,” said Linda Hardison, the teach in charge of the school’s MentorPlace program. “It’s based on investigative principles.”
Anne McNeill with the IBM in Charlotte brought the robotics to the school and delivered more supplies to Elise Middle School later that afternoon.
IBM has facilities close to many of the schools it partners with, McNeill said. But the company began looking for more schools farther away that it thought would benefit from the partnership.
McNeill took requests from the teachers when her company awarded the grant.
“I said, ‘Tell me what you want,’” she said.
She brought the 10 packages of Legos and showed students how to get started. The program shows students what IBM programmers do every day.
Stidinger is using the fun learning experience as a way to reinforce the fifth-grade science curriculum.
Each of the four groups of four or five students created a unique car with wheels, Legos and gears. Students figured out how to put the cars together and then program them to perform certain functions.
One group had programmed its car to drive in a straight line when it collided with Stidinger’s foot.
Robbins received the $14,000 Partners In Education (PiE) grant from the IBM Hispanic Diversity Network.
The grant provides eight new IBM ThinkPad laptops, an LCD projector, scanner and robotics packages from the Lego Corp. that the students used to create cars.
Earlier in the semester, they spent a day at IBM in Raleigh learning how to program Lego robots and saw a demonstration of the cars’ capabilities.
“I really wanted to underscore the partnership,” Hardison said. “We like to provide as many opportunities for the kids as we can,” she said. “Something like this makes them feel like they’re on the cutting edge.”
IBM partnered with CIS of North Carolina to provide 10 computers and printers to establish an e-mentoring lab at Robbins Elementary. Hardison coordinates the MentorPlace program. Fifth-grade students are linked with volunteer IBM employees from the Research Triangle to establish one-on-one relationships both online and in person to help the students improve academically.
CIS volunteer Lynette Will-iams said the students put the cars together quickly and ran the program much faster than the adults had anticipated. The exercise was expected to take an hour. Instead, it took less than 15 minutes.
As Williams looked over the table where her students were working, she sat back as they chirped instructions in English and Spanish to their classmates, as their car started its journey across the room’s linoleum floor.
“This is new for me,” she said. “They asked us to come help, but they didn’t need any help.”
Caroline Kornegay can be reached at 693-2484 or by e-mail at ckornegay@thepilot.com.
