HCC Robotics Program - Holyoke Community College

HCC Robotics
Program
From Simple Building Blocks
to Intelligent Software
By Janice Beetle Godleski
M
att Freeman and
Myeongok Moon are
paired on a team in Joe
Stahl’s Robotics I class.
Together, they’ve built
a four-wheeled device using Lego
parts that range from a child’s simple
building blocks to intelligent software
and robotic components.
Having built the device is only half
the battle, though. This popular class
also requires that students program
their robots to complete tasks.
Freeman and Moon’s robot must now
travel along a two-foot square taped
on the floor in Stahl’s classroom –
without veering off course in either
direction or crossing over the tape.
So far, it has
failed about
five times,
and their
classmates
are having
similar
struggles with
their own devices.
Everyone is stewing
and mulling over what
changes they need to make.
Stahl moves around, watching,
handing out hints.
“Don’t change a lot of things at one
time,” he tells them. “Just change one
thing at a time.”
A former engineer at Spaulding and
an assistant professor of engineering
at HCC, Stahl
is well suited to
teach this class.
He understands
the mathematical
problems students
are going to bump up
against, and he knows
that working through
them offers a good education.
“We guarantee students that this
class will be the most fun of those
they take at HCC,” Stahl says.
“And we also say it will be the most
interesting.”
Students, like those in the room on
this day, are skeptical about whether
they’d call this “fun,” but Stahl says
by the end of the course, they all
agree.
The numbers back him up.
Ileana Vasu, a professor of
mathematics at HCC and the chair
of the Engineering department, says
the Robotics classes have a very low
dropout rate, and she says demand
for the program has rapidly increased
over the years. HCC began offering
one Robotics I class early on in the
new millennium, and by 2007, five
sessions were being offered and filled.
Now, the college offers eight sessions
of Robotics I for a total of nearly
160 students, and it has created and
offers two sessions of Robotics II as
well, which roughly 40 students take
part in.
“It certainly creates interest,” Vasu
says.
8
I Summer 2012 I CareerFocus “They think it’s the
greatest thing going,”
Stahl adds. “We see
some really exciting
projects coming out of the
Robotics program. People
amaze themselves that they
can actually create something.”
At first glance, the Robotics room
looks more like a pre-school
classroom. Along one wall, Legos
of varying colors and sizes are
sorted in clear bins. There are gears
and wheels and yellow blocks for
the bodies of the cars and other
inventions that students create.
Nearby are dozens of computer
stations that help identify that this is
indeed a college classroom; students
use special software and hardware
developed by Lego to program the
devices they’ve created. The Lego
RCX device, also known as the
“brick,” serves as the brain for each
robot, mounted on top and holding
the knowledge that makes it move
through its particular paces.
In Freeman and Moon’s case, the
paces take their robot through the
completion of the square. They look
pensive as their robot ambles along
on its four Lego wheels and takes its
first few right-hand turns, staying on
track.
But then the device veers hard to the
right on the third turn and meanders
over the taped line. Freeman scoops
it up, and together, he and Moon
head back to the computer station
to adjust their programming; they
tell the robot to go straight for an
additional second on that second
straightaway in hopes that it will
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then not be so close to the taped line
on the third length.
Around this pair, another half
dozen teams are also experiencing
frustration and defeat as they try to
make their robots pass the same test.
Only one team has completed project
one; its members are now working
on the second project, which is to
create a robot that can travel around
a sphere.
By 11:45 a.m., tension in the class
has peaked. Team members wait in
line to try their robots on the square.
“Exacerbating,” one student says.
Stahl is amused. He came on board
as an adjunct instructor for the
math department at HCC in 2005
and moved into engineering in 2007,
when he started to teach the Robotics
class.
“We guarantee students that this class will be
the most fun of those they take at HCC. And we
also say it will be the most interesting.”
Joe Stahl
Some students who take Robotics I
also get some intensive learning in
the education arena; that’s because
Stahl takes students in one of his
classrooms to the Holyoke Boys and
Girls Club four times a semester for
service learning.
Stahl’s students teach the youngsters
how to build their own robots, and at
the end of the session, they have a
drag race with the robots the children
make.
“It’s really a hoot,” Stahl says. “It’s
worked out really well.”
It works out well in Stahl’s classroom,
too. While many of the students are
still stumped, they have a drive to
achieve, and they each have an idea
on how to try to fix their robots’
various problems. They troubleshoot,
swap in different tires and gears to
rule out equipment issues, and they
go back to their computer programs,
time and again, making subtle
tweaks.
Within their teams, and as a
classroom, they can be heard
collaborating and making suggestions
to one another. They offer each other
encouragement.
By noon, Freeman and Moon and a
handful of other teams have earned
their five points and moved on to
project two. They feel good.
“This is a huge trial-and-error thing,”
Freeman says. “It took two days to
figure it out.”
“It was a lot of learning for me to
figure out the controls and [issues
of] direction, power and timing,”
adds Moon. “We had to use our
imaginations.”
Stahl says Robotics I was originally
created by three professors, including
Bob Greeney and Ed Budd, who
team-taught the class. It was
intended then that the class would
attract and benefit engineering
students at HCC, many of whom go
on to four-year engineering schools,
but, instead, the class attracts many
liberal arts students who take it to
satisfy a lab science requirement.
Six professors, both adjunct and
full-time professors, teach the various
sessions offered.
Vasu says Robotics I is great for
students who don’t have strong
math skills; those who do can jump
right into Robotics II, which offers
more intensive learning on the
programming side. The latter also
appeals more to engineering majors
more inclined to carry that learning
toward a career.
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CareerFocus I Summer 2012
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