UNL wins $3M grant to expand robot-based curriculum

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By KEVIN ABOUREZK / Lincoln Journal Star

Little robots scuttling across Nebraska classroom floors could soon become less of a novelty.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln announced Tuesday that the National Science Foundation has awarded a university computer and electronics engineering team $3 million to expand its efforts to educate students about math and science through the construction of robots.

The Silicon Prairie Initiative on Robotics in Information Technology Phase 2, or SPIRIT 2.0, will use the five-year grant to develop robotics-based curriculum that schools across the country can use.

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Bing Chen, professor and chair of University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Department of Computer and Electronics Engineering, with a TekBot, a small robot used in an interactive engineering, math, science and technology curriculum his team is developing for schools nationwide. (Courtesy UNL)

Bing Chen, professor and chair of University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Department of Computer and Electronics Engineering, with a TekBot, a small robot used in an interactive engineering, math, science and technology curriculum his team is developing for schools nationwide. (Courtesy UNL)

“This project helps UNL contribute to efforts to increase America’s talent pool by improving K-12 science and math education,” said UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman.

A UNL Computer and Electronics Engineering Department team at Omaha’s Peter Kiewit Institute actually started the SPIRIT project in 2006 with funds from the National Science Foundation.

Since then, the UNL team and education faculty at the University of Nebraska at Omaha have partnered with Omaha Public Schools to launch a program in Omaha middle schools.

The Omaha program trained math and science teachers, grades fifth through eighth, to build small robots called TekBots and to develop lessons using the robots.

The SPIRIT project is the brainchild of Bing Chen, chair of computer and electronics engineering at UNL.

“We’re taking advantage of 100 teachers who have attended our TekBot workshops to assist us in designing a curriculum that can be distributed on a national basis,” Chen said.

The UNL team plans to distribute lessons and technical materials to teachers nationwide that they can use to create hands-on lessons that illustrate concepts like algebraic equations and friction.

But first, teachers will be trained to build and use TekBots. An initial workshop for teacher training will be held in Omaha, and a distance-learning program will be developed to allow more teachers to participate.

The UNL team plans to create an online community where teachers can pose questions and share their experiences and where they can find diagnostic information to help them repair a TekBot.

Chen said he thinks fewer U.S. students are choosing math and science careers because they fail to “see the payoff to what they’re studying.”

He started SPIRIT, he said, to introduce people, especially women and minorities, to math and science at an early age and encourage them to choose science and engineering careers.

“First, you have to empower the teachers,” he said.

Prem Paul, UNL vice chancellor for research, said the SPIRIT project proves the power of collaboration.

“Thanks to Bing Chen’s vision and leadership and building this strong collaboration, we are now positioned to share these innovative learning tools with students in schools nationwide.”

Lisa Showalter is a seventh-grade science teacher at Omaha's Lewis and Clark Middle School, which started using the robotics curriculum in fall 2006 to help teach science and math to students.

The students who took the class learned to build TekBots, but learned even greater lessons, she said. They learned about being part of a team, about practical applications of engineering and about interpersonal skills.

“I think that it’s critical thinking,” she said. “It’s examining how the world functions.”

Many students also developed intense interests in science and math, she said.

“Our first year was absolutely amazing as far as student interest in the class,” she said. “We had students who absolutely decided that engineering was their career path in life.”

Reach Kevin Abourezk at 473-7225 or kabourezk@journalstar.com.