Developing Training Modules for Teachers.

Technical Robotics Education and Curriculum
1

Hello All,

With the help of a mini-grant and a matching grant. we purchased a flip video camera. We are developing a module we hope to show to K-12 teachers in Missouri, both new teachers interested in becoming robotic coaches and experienced coaches.

The two questions we hope the module will help answer :

  1. Why robotics ?
  2. What makes a good mentor ?

Here is a sample video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6zK426wcpY

Cheers,
Marcos.

2

A couple of comments. Please take this as constructive criticism:

  • It’s hard to hear the people talking over the music. The music can still continue, but it should be very low volume
  • A couple of instances of the camera operator making noise are a little distracting
  • The intro montage is a little long. You want to try to keep the viewers’ attention.
  • FIRST already has some materials, including video, that could help support this. I like the personal touches of the teacher interviews and they should definitely be included, but you might think about including a video of Dean or Woodie as well, to help give the program some scale. Often times one of the big things that new team leaders don’t realize is the scale of the program and the amount of support that exists.
  • Perhaps think about keeping the audio of the interviews running while showing video of something else than the person being interviewed. This kind of audio/visual “multitasking” allows you to convey a lot more information in the same period of time. Perhaps show videos of students working, students (and mentors/teachers) enjoying themselves, students learning, competitions, etc.

Looks like you have a lot of great source content from the interviews, though. Sounds like a great idea for a project, and congratulations on getting the grant.

–Ryan

3

Hi Marcos,

Congratulations on the grant! Did it go to Bishop DuBourg HS, or to BEMRC?

I think Ryan’s suggestions above are good. Also, it would be nice to identify the people being interviewed and their roles. For example, the second interview is with Susie Mathieu. She is a member of the FIRST board of directors, and has been a driving force for the development of FIRST in the St. Louis region since 2001.

4

Great job on putting a program like this together for teachers. I did a workshop for Connecticut teachers on robotics a few months back. The ppt presentation is yours to use http://blogs.solidworks.com/teacher/2008/10/brief-history-o.html

It shows really cool robots from the past (Unimate and PUMA) and current robots designed in SolidWorks (Mars ROVER arm, FANUC, VEX, GEARS-EDs, medical robots, humanoid robots an Battlebot robots)

There are many free robot resources for teachers on the SolidWorks teacher blog - http://blogs.solidworks.com/teacher.

Good luck in your quest. Marie

5

Thank you all for the comments and the well wishes.

This is just a “trial video” so it is pretty rough, we hope other teams will develop similar video in which show the following :

  1. The external of the school.
  2. The laboratory/workshop where the school built their robot.
  3. Interview of two adults answering the question :
    a) Why robotics competition ?
    b) What makes a good mentor ?

Participating teams will be invited to participate on a brainstorming session over telecom or/and e-mail to further develop this initial module and possible opportunity to work on additional modules. Submission deadline is August 24, 2009. Submit your video as a response to the video :

This mini-grant was given by MSTA St. Louis Chapter to a MSTA member and was matched by other organizations…we used the money to buy the camera to develop the video. After the mini project is done, the camera will be used by BEMRC on other projects.

Cheers,
Marcos.

6

a few comments.

go find a professional videographer and see if they will help mentor the effort.

a few comments on the video - these are based on comments from our pro mentors.

pan and zoom - avoid unless you are a very experienced professional. novices generally do not do it well.

always use a tripod.

use a good mic - either overhead boom, under scene boom or handheld, or lapel.

follow the rule of thirds - subject 1/3 inside the frame left or right, and about 1/3 from the top.

if the subject is 1/3 frame from the left side, have them looking straight at the face of a human interviewer off to the right side of the camera,

or flip if the interviewer is on the other side.

brief the subject to talk to the interviewer, not the camera.

go watch channels like the discovery channel and science channel and other networks with the sound off. count off the seconds that a particular frame is on screen.

when doing extended interviews drop visuals of other things on top of the audio track to maintain interest and give the viewer different perspectives.

We have done some videos including a 24 minute impact documentary here:

video library

unfortunately it violates some of the guidelines I stated above but hopefully we will get some more of this cleaned up in ‘post’.

7

ebarker,

Those are very good tips. Here is what I have as a summary of your points, let me know if you think it captures the essence, also do you have one more tip for us to round it off :

  1. Videographer as a mentor.
  2. Master the skill of pan and zoom.
  3. Always use a tripod.
  4. Use a mic (either overhead boom, under scene boom or handheld, or lapel)
  5. Rule of thirds : 1/3 inside frame left or right, and about 1/3 from the top.
  6. Subject is 1/3 frame from left side: look straight at interviewer off to the right side of the camera.
  7. Brief the subject to talk to the interviewer, not the camera.
  8. Go watch channels like the discovery channel and science channel and other networks with the sound off. count off the seconds that a particular frame is on screen.
  9. When doing extended interviews drop visuals of other things on top of the audio track to maintain interest and give the viewer different perspectives.

I look forward to see video responses to video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6zK426wcpY using these techniques mentioned I think would be really neat.

I think the only tip that might be dificult for us to do is (4) since we are using a low-cost HD video camera, UltraHD. Not sure if it has connection for a mic, and I think having a separate recorder make the process to complicated. I would like for teams to be able to shoot,edit and upload the video with no more than 1-2 hours of work.

8

I don’t think the flip has a mic input but it could still work for a number of circumstances. If you can get some good pieces done you might can leverage it to find a sponsor to get some better gear.

Another thing you can do is use the flip to record video then replace its audio track with a new track.

Think like a podcaster. Put in your budget to get something like the Audio Techica 2020 USB vocal mike. It plugs into you PC and uses a high quality condensor mike for VO (voice over) work.

Another option is to create an audio slideshow. You can use static photos from a still camera for the visuals. Then you can put a VO track on top.

You can do this in Microsoft Movie Maker. The most space efficient way is probably using a program like Soundslides. Here is a demo we threw together in about two minutes, dropping random pictures and a VO demo track from professional Will Lyman. demo

The camera really does catch everything. Things you don’t notice in normal conversation the camera captures and exposes. Which leads to another rule.

  1. If you are interviewing more than one person, as part of a panel interview make sure the other panelists are non-distracting. Example, have the second person look toward, or into space toward the interviewee, or toward the interviewer.

If you were to go look at the documentary here

And start at the 10:00 mark you will see a couple of students being interviewed. Then the visual changes with a series of pictures.

I will let you in on a little secret. The video was so bad and so distracting with the second person not knowing where to look we had to replace the visual.

Professionally speaking every scene should have a director that is looking at the screen while it is being shot to make sure it is being done correctly.

Like robotics, we learn as we go and sometimes the mentors are not always there to help straighten things out but we got it fixed in ‘post’ which is the last chance to fix anything.

.

9

ebarker,

  1. Videographer as a mentor.
  2. Master the skill of pan and zoom.
  3. Always use a tripod.
  4. Use a mic (either overhead boom, under scene boom or handheld, or lapel)
  5. Rule of thirds : 1/3 inside frame left or right, and about 1/3 from the top.
  6. Subject is 1/3 frame from left side: look straight at interviewer off to the right side of the camera.
  7. Brief the subject to talk to the interviewer, not the camera.
  8. Count off the seconds that a particular frame is on screen.
  9. Drop visuals to give the viewer different perspectives.
  10. interviewing more than one person: other panelists are non-distracting.

Here is a summary of your top 10 tips, I plan to start a new thread in regards a module for “Videography” or maybe a broader topic such as “Building Team Awareness”.

I just attended a celebration event in St. Louis yesterday, PBS talked about their documentary and their plans for the documentary…I plan to post that info on the Videography Module thread.

In the meantime I am working on the second video. I will post it when finished. I tried to concentrate on tip 6 — we will what it comes out. Stay tuned.

Cheers,
Marcos.