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Frequently
Asked Questions
What
is this Web site?
Who would benefit from this site?
How did this project get started?
What level of education does this site address?
What is a classroom activity?
What is a calculator program?
What
is a SAM?
Can
I make a SAM?
What are your workshops all about?
How do I schedule a workshop at my site?
Are there on-line activities that would help me understand what you do
in your workshops?
Can I bring ideas and activities from your workshops into my classroom?
Who has participated in your workshops?
What is this Web site?
This Web site supports a National Science Foundation
grant-supported project to improve teaching in the areas of Mathematics,
Science, and Technology at the high school and college levels. Improved
learning results from using math, science, and technology principles
to build and control various machines such as pointers and robots.
Who
would benefit from this site?
In addition to providing general information to anyone
who wants to know more about the Math Machines concept, this site provides
support in the form of machine building instructions, calculator programs,
discussion forums, etc. for those who have participated in Math Machines workshops.
What
level of education do you work with?
Most of our work is done with high school and community
college teachers of math, science, and technology. However, workshops can
be created for k-12 and university participants.
What
is a classroom activity?
During Math Machines workshops, participants
engage in group learning activities such as building robots
and controling robots with calculator programs. These activities
can then be taken back to each participant's classroom and
used to improve student learning. The activites are constructed
so that they are very much in alignment with educational
standards for national math, science, and technology.
What
is a calculator program?
The machines that are used in our hands-on learning activities
are controlled by Texas Instruments calculators. Various calculator programs
are installed onto the calculators in order to cause the machines to do
various things such as move, point, or reflect a light in much
the same way that scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians
use embedded computers to control automobiles, hospital instruments, home
appliances and industrial machinery.
What
is a SAM?
SAM is a calculator controlled robot, and the letters stand
for Science And Math
Robot. SAM is only one of the machines that we build and program in order
to apply math and science principles to real-life problems.
Can
I make a SAM?
Yes. One of the primary activities in our workshops is
usually the construction of SAMs in small groups -- and/or the construction
of other calculator-controlled machines such as pointers. The process of
creating a SAM starts with breadboard, wheels, motor, soldering equipment,
etc. and results
in
functional
robots. Creating SAM is
a satisfying and fun process, oftentimes resulting in custom-decorated
robots, each with a personality of its own. SAM is designed to be cost-effective
so that they can be created for as little as $20, not including the caluculator
used to control SAM.
What
are your workshops all about?
We've done workshops that were 4 hours, 1 day, 3 days,
1 week and 2 weeks. During the workshops, participants create and control
machines using principles from math and science. The activities can be
taken back to the classroom and used to help students understand, through
application, the principles of math and science. The cost depends on the
materials we provide
(ranging
from a breadboard controller
to full
robots),
the number
of participants,
and the extent to which we need to customize the workshop.
How
do I schedule a workshop at my site?
To schedule a workshop contact fred.thomas@mathmachines.net.
Are
there on-line examples that would help me understand what you
do in your workshops?
You can get some understanding of and feel
for the workshops by viewing photos
from past workshops, perusing
the building instructions for
various machines, and browsing the text version of an
activity. The things that are hard to
capture on-line are the postive group processas and collaborative
learning that occur when people work on these problems together
in the workshops.
Can
I bring ideas and activities from your workshop into my classroom?
Absolutely. The workshops are designed to walk participants
through activities that can be replicated, and adjusted to meet specific
requirements in your classroom.
Who
has participated in your workshops?
Typical participants have been groups of high school and
community college teachers of math, science, and/or technology.
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"The
most important skill determining a person's life pattern has already
become the ability to learn new skills, to take in new concepts,
to assess new situations, to deal with the unexpected. This will
be increasingly true in the future: The competitive ability is the
ability to learn.”
Seymour Papert
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"It
is folly to use as one's guide in the selection of fundamental science
the criterion of utility. Not because (scientists)... despise utility.
But because. .. useful outcomes are best identified after the making
of discoveries, rather than before."
John C. Polanyi. Excerpt from the keynote address
to the Canadian Society for the Weizmann Institute of Science,
Toronto June 2, 1996
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