One of the most unique clubs in the Hawthorne School District is the Robotics Club. The members at Lincoln Middle School and Hawthorne High School, along with their advisor, physics teacher Michael Davidson, all have a passion for building and using robots. Last year, Davidson, along with then-VP Dario Sforza, created what is known today as the Hawthorne Robotics Club.
From the beginning, the goal of the Robotics Club has been to introduce students to the process of building, coding, and configuring the electronics of robots. Though it is important, the actual building of the robots isn’t the main focus of the meetings. The coding and assembling of the electronics of the robot is what takes the most time and usually interests students the most. To club member Fabrizio Torres building and programing robots is just plain fun. “It’s like when I was a kid playing with Legos; it’s a fun way to learn computer science.”
According to Davidson, the club has valuable educational components. “The club offers students an introduction to computer coding in C, RobotC, and B Basic Coding. It also serves as an introduction to electronics, specifically the use of electrical resisters, EMF sources, and Jumper Wires. The work also reinforces ideas of geometry and algebra; for example, calculating the number of pulses to make a specific turn and calculating the number of pulses needed to move robot a certain distance forward or backward. Additionally, we can use our Parallax Robots in several electricity and magnetism physics labs; creating robots reinforces Ohm’s Law, and distinguishes the types of electrical circuits (series v parallel).”
Through a complex series of coding, the robots are programmed to perform various tasks as they move forward, reverse, pivot and turn. For example, the “groper” robot can open and close “hands” to pick up and drop items. The robot the students have named “Zippy” shoots off sound waves that alert the robot he is near a wall and signal the robot to turn around.
The Robotics Club has 45 members; with 35 students from the Lincoln Middle School and 10 members from the high school. New, inexperienced club members are welcomed into the club at any time during the school year. Mr. Davidson encourages students to join the club regardless of experience level and says that, “We like to have novices in our club.”
Extra information on the Robotics Club can be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14kaOfprf-Y. This series of videos give a good introduction to the Robotics Club and will show what the robots can do.
