Society Fellow Caprice Coleman Goes Out on a Robotic Limb for Students
By Caitlin Jennings, Communications Coordinator, 中文无码 & the Public
Caprice 鈥淐appi鈥� Coleman teaches at Moss High School, a small, rural school near Holdenville, Oklahoma with 293 students grades K-12. More than half of those students are considered economically disadvantaged, which qualified her to earn a聽聽last year to help her efforts to start an independent research program. Over the last several months, with the help of the Society, her students have spent Saturdays and time after school monitoring water and soil related to a recent oil-field development.
However, as one of the only science teachers at such a small school, Cappi says she has had to branch out of her comfort zone in life science to help her students. 鈥淚 have so many kids that are interested in robotics and in electronics, and all those sort of things. Again, that鈥檚 not a strength that I have, but I feel that I am the last science that they are going to get from 7th-12th grade,鈥� she says. 鈥淚鈥檝e got to promote every kind of science and engineering; I鈥檝e got to promote all of the things that I can because if they don鈥檛 get it from me, and they don鈥檛 go on to college, they are not going to get it.鈥�
Last year, they built the school鈥檚 first robot. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really complex. You鈥檙e thinking 鈥榦h, ok we just move it from here to there,鈥� but it鈥檚 an autonomous robot so you have to program it and just let it go, so it鈥檚 been quite the learning process,鈥� Cappi says. Their work earned them a partial scholarship of $1,700 to attend Botball (an educational robotics program) and, thanks to the support from the Society, they were able to make up the rest of the amount in order to attend the event.
This year, they are focusing their attention on the聽, a competition that requires robots to do specific tasks, like moving pieces of a certain color. This year teams will try to score points against each other by having their robot put waffle balls into specific areas. Cappi and her students attended the 中文无码 Institute Training over the summer to prepare and they also plan to attend a help session sponsored by the competition and receive guidance from and Okalahoma State University Extension agent from Okmulgee County.
鈥淲e鈥檝e already accomplished more so far this year than last year,鈥� Cappi says. One of her students was recently worried about winning the competition and she told him, 鈥淚t鈥檚 not about that, look at how far we鈥檝e come in one year and, I said, we still have a month so we鈥檝e got a lot that we are going to be able to do between now and then.鈥�
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