LEGO Engineering
One LEGO brick may not be able to sort M&M’s, but a LEGO brick, motor, light sensor, and mini programmable CPU can easily divide the familiar colored candies into piles of like colors. Such a LEGO robotic M&M sorter is just one example of the many projects teachers and students alike have created in the LEGO Engineering world, a Tufts University CEEO and LEGO Education creation.
The LEGO Engineering world is centralized at LEGOEngineering.com, which is the premiere resource for educators using LEGO Education’s robotic toolset of LEGO MINDSTORMS to engage students in STEM. A collaborative effort between Tufts University CEEO and LEGO Education, the website was launched in 2006, and has had an estimated 800,000 visitors in just three years. Website features include sample projects, code, and helpful hints; an activity database along with subject-focused curriculum units; and podcasts, online classes, and other useful resources for implementing LEGO robotics in the K-12 classroom.
To further inspire teacher users of robotics, a new community section was launched in the fall of 2008 to empower educators from around the world in the contribution of their lesson plans, photos, and ideas to bring STEM learning and LEGO into classrooms. The community section is freely available to anyone that visits the site, and registration to the community requires only an email address.
In another effort to facilitate teachers sharing their ideas and experiences with LEGO robotics in the classroom, the CEEO has also partnered with LEGO Education to facilitate LEGO Engineering conferences in locations around the world, from Australia to Malaysia to Sweden. The purpose of the LEGO Engineering conferences is to gather teachers who use or plan to use LEGO robotics to enhance STEM in their classrooms so they not only have the opportunity to share amongst themselves, but also to learn about new developments in LEGO MINDSTORMS education and meet fellow robotics education users and experts. The conferences themselves are one-day experiences that offer a unique combination of hands-on workshops, fellow teacher presentations, and networking time, and each participating teacher walks away with Tufts University certified professional development units. Go to http://www.legoengineering.com/conferences to find out when and where the next conference will be! And perhaps you’ll learn the secret to creating the LEGO robotic M&M sorter.
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