JANUARY 25, 2019, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A7
KeizerCommunity
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Celts fi nd droids they’ve been looking for
Round robots
unlock physics
lessons
By MATT RAWLINGS
Of the Keizertimes
Jessica Graham has been
teaching science at McNary
since 2005 and takes pride in
having engaging and fun activi-
ties in her curriculum.
But she may have hit the
jackpot when she introduced
Spheros to her science class ear-
lier in December.
A Sphero, roughly the size of
an orange and otherwise known
as a spherical robot, is an elec-
tronically charged, mobile, ball-
shaped robot that is wrapped in
polycarbonate and can be con-
trolled using a smartphone or
tablet. It was originally released
in 2013 and it was featured in
Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
While several smartphone
apps and games have been cre-
ated for the platform, Graham
uses the Spheros to teach the
velocity unit to McNary fresh-
men in her honors physics and
chemical systems class.
“It’s defi nitely a unique way
to learn,” McNary student Va-
nessa Orlov said. “I’m a big sci-
ence geek, but I never thought
that I would be doing some-
thing like this in high school.”
“There’s a lot of tri-
al-and-error, but it’s really fun.”
With the tap of a fi nger, you
can command a Sphero to go
up to fi ve miles and even get
in to move on water. It makes
pinpoint turns and can even do
several different fl ips and tricks.
The Sphero can be used as
a fun and playful toy, but it also
incorporates signifi cant STEM
(Science, Technology, Engi-
neering, Arts, and Math) capa-
bilities in the device, which is
why Graham wanted to bring
them into her classroom.
Graham got the idea to
bring Spheros to McNary after
going to a conference for the
Oregon Science Teachers As-
sociation (OSTA) in Newport
earlier in the school year.
After borrowing a set of
Spheros from the Salem-Keizer
School District TAG Depart-
ment (Talented and Gifted),
Graham introduced them to
her kids.
“I wanted (my students)
to get past just working with
an equation,” Graham said. “I
wanted them to construct the
Hayden
Wampler
(above) and Jordan
Flesch
work
with
Spheros, small round
robots as part of their
physics lessons.
KEIZERTIMES/
Matt Rawlings
program to tell the Sphero
what to do. The kids went from
just learning about velocity, to
actually programming a robot
to do the velocity lab.”
After their fi rst activity, Gra-
ham saw her students test scores
improve drastically, which was
all the convincing that she and
the science department needed
to buy a set of Spheros for the
school.
Even though the students
in Graham’s class have been
working with Spheros for only
a short period of time,
they already have done
multiple unique group
projects with the de-
vice — with the most
popular being the Mar-
tian-Man Challenge.
Graham gave her students
the scenario of a martian min-
er who is stranded on Mars and
needs to be rescued using the
Spheros.
By writing a computer pro-
gram to test the velocity of
the Sphero over a set distance
and learning how to refi ne the
computer program to increase
accuracy of data collection, the
students were able to “rescue”
a stranded martian miner —
which is just a small toy person
— using the Sphero to get the
miner back to its home-base
following a set course that in-
cluded several stops and sharp
turns.
The students also had to
construct straws and pipe
cleaners together to carry their
martian miner on the Sphero.
“There was a lot of indepen-
dent learning involved. I didn’t
tell them to program anything
beyond the fi rst day. They had
to fi gure it out,” Graham said.
“It took a lot of problem solv-
ing and skill-building within
the groups.”
Eventually, the project
turned into a friendly class
competition to determine
which team could develop the
most accurate and fastest com-
puter program to safely trans-
port the martian miner on the
course.
“Learning about velocity
and acceleration in the nor-
mal way, to me, would be more
boring and less fun. But with
the Spheros, I actually want to
know how this stuff works,”
McNary student Sage Allen
said.
“On the last day, of the
Martian-Man Challenge, my
group was able to take a cou-
ple seconds off our time by just
changing some minor things.
It was really cool to see how
changing the speed of some-
thing just slightly could effect
the way (the Sphero) goes
around the course.”
The students have also used
the Spheros to test the First Law
of Thermodynamics — which
looks at the transfer of kinetic
energy through collisions.
In the coming months, Gra-
ham plans to have her students
design a computer program and
engineer a corresponding roller
coaster to demonstrate kinetic
versus potential energy.
Along with the obvious sci-
ence aspect, Graham has been
pleased with how the Sphero
projects have allowed the op-
portunity for her students to
successfully work as a team.
“Not only were students
working to work out how to
program their Spheros with
the correct coding and math,
but they also taught each other
how to problem solve their way
through the math and code,”
Graham said.
St. Ed hosts
blood drive
The American Red Cross
will hold a blood drive from
12:30 to 6 p.m. at St. Edward
Catholic Church on Wednes-
day, Jan. 30.
Blood donors may sched-
ule an appointment by calling
1-800-RED-CROSS, sign up
online (redcrossblood.org) or
walk in on Jan. 30.
KEIZER CLASSIFIEDS
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KEIZER CLEAR LAKE
UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
a member of Open Door
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REV. ALYSSA BAKER, Lead Pastor
Services are Sunday at 10 am
(Nursery & Sunday School for Children)
7920 Wheatland Rd N • 503-393-2402 • www.kclumc.org
PEOPLESCHURCH
4500 LANCASTER DR NE | SALEM
503.304.4000 • www.peopleschurch.com
Father Gary L. Zerr, Pastor
Saturday Vigil Liturgy: 5:30 p.m.
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www.FLCkeizer.org
Sunday School - 9:00 am
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Faith Lutheran Church , ELCA
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John Knox Presbyterian Church
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