talk to you today about robots I love
robots
they’ve truly captured my imagination
right and I know I’m not alone
whether you fell in love with wall-e
were terrified by Terminator or even
just laughed at the antics of bb-8
everyone has their favorites robots have
a unique power to captivate our
imaginations and more and more can be
used in ways that we had never imagined
possible many years ago like aiding
manufacturing processes doing dangerous
tasks that humans can’t perform or even
as I found education yep
that robot helped me love school and I
know there’s some kids in the audience
that are thinking that it’s impossible
to law school but I’ll explain to me
robotics represents what our education
system could be should be and will be in
the very near future so let me back up a
bit
I fell in love with robotics when I
discovered the local robotics team in my
town of Newton Massachusetts right down
the road and this team is called the
lager brats
now the lager brats are part of a
broader organization called FIRST
Robotics which is a robotics competition
for high schools that gives teams six
weeks to design and build robots to
compete in Robotics challenges so these
challenges could be like last year’s
challenge stronghold in which robots
cross defenses shot balls into the
opponent’s tower defended their own
Tower from invaders and even climbed the
wall at the end of the game some of
those robots can benchpress more than I
couldn’t see all right but how exactly
did these robots help me love school
well aside from the great engineering
that I did while building these the most
important thing that I took away from
this experience was the idea of linking
content to experience in education
before I was on the lugger BOTS
I had the mentality of the average
student I went to class took the notes I
went home did the problems that were
assigned in the back of the book but I
rarely felt motivated to go deeper
however the liger bots changed my entire
mentality regarding
education I started to see very real
very practical applications for the
things that I was learning in school
which not only caused me to become more
vested in my classes but see my
education as a whole very differently
what I was learning during the day in
physics and math I was putting into
practice at night at the lager brats I
found myself doing the same equation at
10:00 a.m. in the classroom as I did at
10:00 p.m. in the robotics lab except at
the robotics lab solving for that
equation meant finding the dimensions of
a real tangible arm and believe me math
is a lot easier to be passionate about
when getting the right answer to an
equation means getting to shoot your
he he almost got me there he almost got
me there at this point I was wondering
if anybody else had thought the same
things that I had right because I’m just
a teenager and teenagers can never have
original ideas so I must have gotten
this from somewhere right well it turns
out that there are some pretty smart
people who had discovered the same thing
than I had so one of these groups is
George Lucas’s foundation Edutopia who
called this idea project-based learning
which they define as creating product or
performance right solving a real-world
problem or even just designing an answer
to an open-ended question it’s as simple
as that so next I decided to ask my
friends what were their thoughts about
project-based learning well much to my
surprise across the board whether they
were on the robotics team or they
weren’t it did math they did science
English history art music sports
whatever they did the idea of linking
content to experience in education was
extremely important to them so with
technology increasing as fast as it is
today right what will this mean for the
classroom 10 20 or even 30 years in the
future well when I let my imagination
loose I see a classroom in which we can
use virtual reality technology robotics
technology and other experience based
simulations that immerse us in content
and this kind of makes sense right
because robotics virtual reality
project-based learning all these things
have a common thread and that’s the
experience of doing something which can
be extremely beneficial for learners
and the data backs this up as studies
have shown that students retain content
for longer and have better attitudes
towards learning when they’re part of
project-based experience based
classrooms so although virtual reality
is the hot topic right now maybe it’s a
fad maybe it isn’t regardless of what
form it’s in I get extremely excited
about the idea of linking content to
experience hopefully this will allow
students to better learn better engage
just like I was able to do via the
logger BOTS so now I know you’ve been
eagerly anticipating his introduction he
tried to interrupt me a few times
earlier but I feel like because he’s
here I might as well introduce him at
this point so ladies and gentlemen this
is Talos the 2016 lager BOTS competition
so with his uh was his durable tread
system and rugged aluminum frame Talos
can best anyone in the shoving match I
don’t get you nothing and just because
he has braun doesn’t mean he has no
brain
Talos can make shots from up to ten feet
and so I’d like to talk to you about
this arm right so when we started out
designing this arm it was a scramble of
X’s Y’s and Z’s in a notebook that would
eventually eventually eventually unravel
themselves to reveal real numbers and
while it might not seem like each one of
those numbers it’s quite important on
its own right behind each one of those
dimensions right was the story of a
person who spent an hour maybe even two
hours grinding on an extremely long math
equation this is like calculus type
stuff right and they they got their
numbers they go into the shop they’re
gonna configure their prototype and that
fiftieth try that time when it actually
works there’s nothing else that person
can do but put their hands up in the air
and scream yes because in that moment
they’ve experienced the epitome of
project-based learning that’s the moment
where everything makes sense that’s the
moment where all that time that you
spent in the classroom bored out of your
mind
is actually worth something in the real
world I’m not here to convince you to
join a robotics team instead I’m here to
convince you to challenge your education
system teachers I would encourage you to
integrate project-based learning more
into your classrooms if you’re a parent
push your teachers and push your
administration’s
to integrate more of this project-based
learning but if you’re a student go out
into the world and find your passion
find a spark to drive you on your
educational journey just like I found
robotics to drive me there’s a common
saying in first-first is more than
robots this robot is more than just the
arm we did we did trigonometry for more
than just the circuits we learned to
build in electronics class
instead this robot is the expression of
what those who are engaged in their
learning can accomplish this robot help
me love school and it could do the same
for you go out there and find your spark [Applause]