CONCEPT DEFINITION -Robots and Thematic Topics BEATLESONGS by Diane Lally

MOTIVATION- For years I have been teaching my 12-week classes using a special new theme for each of the three 12-week sections throughout the school year. One of my most popular themes was my Beatlesongs theme. This theme focused on the history and life stories of the Beatles as well as their songs and lyrics. At first, I didnt know how todays middle school student born around the year 2000 would relate to the Beatles and their music. I was delighted to learn that many of my students were familiar with the Beatles and in fact, most of them had favorite songs and even favorite members of the band. By the time the 12 weeks ended I noticed such an interest that I continued the theme into the next 12-week section (a first for me). Introducing robotics and merging it with my art classes and themes seemed like the next step to take. I created a Ringo Beatlebot, (a term first used by my wonderful, enthusiastic superintendent). My vision is to have a class of students create a robot like I did that can be a member of the Beatles or even a character from the lyrics or title of a song. I wanted to do this with a small group of 8th graders because of the age appropriate nature. We would have a theme involving a few of the usual art projects, but use a large amount of time on the creation, programming, and demonstrating the robot. Because I have limited Robot kits, I am thinking of having students work in pairs or larger to create their robot. STANDARDS METPA ACADEMIC STANDARDS FOR THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES PRODUCTION, PERFORMANCE, EXHIBITION CONTEXT OF HISTORY AND CULTURE CRITICAL RESPONSE AESTHETIC RESPONSE RUBRIC EXAMPLENEATNESS CRAFTSMANSHIP CREATIVITY/INNOVATION WORK SKILLS (Artistic/Robotic) EFFORT/MOTIVATION 4 Highest Quality Extremely Creative Excellent Extremely High 3 Good Quality Fairly Creative Good Somewhat High 2 Fair Quality Almost Creative Fair Average 1 Poor Quality Lack of creativity Poor Low

PROPOSED CALENDARWeek one- Theme introduction/theme building activities Week two and three- Work folder thematic project introduced and started Week four Work folder thematic project concludes Week five- Introduce the robotics aspect of the class. Demonstrate the Ringo Beatlebot, share videos from the CMU course from the Posterous and Robot Diaries blogs. Week six- Introduce the materials, the hummingbird robot kits, art materials, etc. Students can begin planning sketches and discussing the robot they will build within their working groups. Week seven and eight Robot creation. Servos and lights are connected to the robots. Art activities like design and decoration are worked on as well. Weeks nine through twelve- Software programming activities. Making sure the robots are moving and doing the right things. Commands are working. Students present their finished robots to other members of the class in preparation for the day at the end of the twelve weeks when members of the administrative staff would be invited to watch student presentations.