Memorial High engineering students become inventors

Teachers at Memorial High School are using Lego building toys to introduce students to the basic concepts of engineering.

Freshmen and juniors in Lane Cardwell Matheson's introduction to engineering class are entering robots and machines of their own designs in the First Lego League robotics competition.

Memorial students will test their inventions against more than 9,000 teams from three continents at the Dec. 16 tournament in Richardson, Texas.

Freshmen Alex Forrest and De'Alahondre Wilson worked together over a computer console to test how their design could work.

"Ours is a robotic arm modified to have a driving base on it," Forrest said. "Everyone else is doing theirs out of the book, but we're using the computer to design ours."

Samantha Lowery, a chemistry teacher, is helping Matheson guide her class through the process.

She said the students were doing a lot more than just playing with toys.

"The (Tulsa) Engineering Academy at Memorial sponsors the Lego league to introduce students to the basic elements of engineering," she said. "They have to learn to work in groups, they have to work under a deadline, and they have to produce a fully autonomous robot with its own programming."

The students' involvement with the competition is also a way to learn problem-solving skills, Matheson said.

"When you have to work with other people under a set objective, that's developing a skill that is useful in just about any professional career," she said.

Lowery said Legos make a particularly useful teaching tool because most students are already familiar with them.

"Most of them have grown up playing with Legos," Lowery said. "There are a lot of companies who are sponsoring these competitions so students will have the interest and the knowledge to get into technology-related careers. Those skills can be lacking in a lot of people entering the workforce."

After designing their robots and building them, the students must use the lab's computers to give their creations the programming needed to complete various "missions" for the competitions, Matheson said.

These can range from basic tasks like pushing or pulling an object to more involved duties, such as picking up an object and placing it in a precise location, she said.

One three-student team, Steven Harper, D'Shai Bellargeon and Eric Doutey, designed a bulldozer-type automaton.

"We're still trying to work the bugs out of this one," Harper said. "He'll get it. He's still learning."

As their robot rolled around on the floor of the classroom in a seemingly random pattern, Doutey explained that the robot can't do anything it wasn't programmed to do ahead of time.

"We do all the programming on the computer first," Doutey said. "It has to be completely autonomous. No remote controls allowed."

Tailoring the programming toward the contest's objectives is one of the more difficult parts of the competition, Harper said.

"We're aiming it toward specific challenges," he said. "We don't want it to be a Jack of all trades."

Bellargeon said she was confident of her team's abilities.

"We'll do just fine," she said. "We've got all the smart people on our team."