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FIRST Classroom Integration
Just to survey community opinion: how do you all feel about integrating FIRST with classroom material?
More specifically: have high school students (such as myself) code for the school FIRST team to gain real life experience solving problems, Math teachers explaining the real life implications of calculus and geometry making example of the team, Chemistry and Physics teachers talking about materials sciences (strength, weight, structure) and other aspects of engineering (everything from torque to octane rating). Personally I feel that it would be a great idea, but I feel that many schools, though they may overall agree with FIRST, may disagree with this kind of integration. To those who are confused: my manifesto here is to eliminate the dreaded question that students use to waste time, which is "When am I ever going to use this in real life?" Post your ideas, comments, and suggestions. |
Re: FIRST Classroom Integration
It's a cool idea, and I know some teams have already embraced it. I've seen everything from making FRC an elective all the way through 1717's program of making it the senior capstone. I recall one of our local private schools has a fantastic team (1218), and something like 40%? of all students who elect to attend at least partially attribute their interest to the FIRST program, which runs (J?)FLL-FRC. Realistically, it'd probably be difficult to systemically bring FIRST into public school systems, but there are some success stories.
To be fair though, I'm not sure the average "When am I going to use this?" student would take "well, there are these 120lb robots that play frisbee in the gym" as an answer. ;) We might need a bit more of a "and check out how the industry professionals that mentor them use the same skills in X,Y,Z (A,B,C,D....)". |
Re: FIRST Classroom Integration
I don't believe that it is in the spirit of FIRST to force engagement from students who might not want to participate in working on their school's robotics team. On the other hand I agree that it would be great if math and science classes were able to incorporate more practical applications that could be applied to FIRST.
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I don't think anyone's looking to force it. At the most, it'd be great to get FIRST projects as common electives throughout the public school curricula, and facilitating teachers to answer "when am I going to use this?" with "well, I think there's a meeting Wednesday if you'd like to check it out and meet some engineers". |
Re: FIRST Classroom Integration
Our elective class is based around FIRST but does not require enrolled students to be on the team, although it is highly encouraged. We also encourage students to only take it once to let others have a chance. We have not gotten enough interest in it to expand to adding more advanced classes. For example a Robotics 1, Robotics 2, etc.
Because of this the students do not help build the robot during build season during class time. They may work on a small off-season project but nothing large scale as we build at a location that is not near the school. This past semester the class was tasked with building a robot (that conformed to a majority of FRC rules) that could play hockey. I know in previous semesters they have been tasked with designing a robot that could accomplish different task. |
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Given this, I support a course that teaches things which pertain to robotics, but not FIRST specifically. For example, a programming class that teaches how to program physical systems rather than computer programs (please excuse my lack of proper terms, I'm not a programmer). This would be useful to students on an FRC team, but would still be completely relevant even if you decided to quit FIRST. |
Re: FIRST Classroom Integration
I think that tying a team directly to a required class, as some teams do, creates a barrier to entry that keeps out students that could otherwise be inspired. I'm all for non-mandatory classes that enhance robotics-related skills, especially if students who don't want to join a team, or THINK they don't want to join a team, are also included.
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As for being 'forced' once you've volunteered, well sure, but doesn't that bear an odd resemblance to much of life in general? ;) |
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I think too much integration is a bad thing. Not all kids at every high school in the world want to be on a robotics team, they just are not passionate about it. And without a passion, FIRST is just a boring and time consuming.
Too much exposure to FIRST will not make kids want to join FIRST, actually it will do the opposite. That being said, I do think there is room for some integration. For example, physics classes can do an experiment or two show real life scenarios. But, I still think a best way to integrate FIRST into classrooms is simply to add a robotics/engineering class. Where kids join because they have a slight interest in the field, and then they can use their science, math, and engineering skills to do things :) |
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