Hi everyone! Thank you again for watching our video.  

I just wanted to direct those who are interested to our lab page which is currently being updated: https://uttallabs.northwestern.edu  

We are currently in the process of actually ironing that out. We have just purchased a number of different sensors that can be used with the robots (e.g., temperature sensor, sound sensor), and this summer, our plan is to run a two week internship that focuses on detailing the experiments students can carry out using these tools. One idea includes using the motion sensor to collect data that the students will then use to calculate acceleration. 

Finding a way to implement Arduinos into a setting with students of different levels of prior experience with coding was one of the biggest challenges that we have faced. We settled on using the robots made my Makeblock because of the scaffolds they provide on the Arduino and on coding. It makes it more accessible for a variety of students. All the data we have collected so far has been in an after school program environment. We hope to iron out some experiments we can run with these tools this summer and implement the experiments in physics classrooms this fall. We have a high school physics teacher who is working with us and some students to help design the science experiments using the robots and the arduinos. 

Thanks, Kinnari.  I'm curious--do you have an advisory board or council of external advisors for your project?  If so, are they engaged/active in helping you think about scaling this project?  After school is a great place to pilot--you get "low hanging fruit"--kids who are already interested and intrigued.  I'll be curious to hear how a wider implementation works in the schools.  Is your physics teacher a teacher leader?  will s/he be able to bring the project into her/his classes?

Hi Nancy. I'm just going to jump in here. We currently are working very closely with our physics teacher and this summer our focus is to work on developing a curriculum or lesson plan using these Arduinos which can be implemented in multiple classrooms this fall.

I have never used the LilyPad Arduino before. I am curious to hear about how that works with your high school students. 

When it comes to Professional Development tools, we hope to provide teachers with a lesson plan for science experiments the students could conduct using these robots and provide some training prior to implementation on using the robots themselves. We have a teacher on the team right now whose role is to help us understand what kind of resources teachers may need to be able to successfully implement these in the classroom. So I hope to have a clearer picture on what PD would look like sometime this summer. 

We hope to address the "fluency gap" by implementing the robots high school physics classes at a diverse high school. We hope that by integrating them into a class that is required for all students, high school physics, we will reach a broad number of students from different backgrounds and with different levels of experience and skills. 

We agree that the high cost of the robot is a limitation. But, we hope that by having the students work in groups, we can help minimize the cost. Also, if this study is successful and is expanded to multiple schools in the future, approaching make block and other arduino robot companies about buying these robots in bulk, or getting an education discount is something we would definitely look into. 

Thank you so much Tamara!