The Woodland Hills School District has partnered with multiple school districts in Western Pennsylvania as well as Special Olympics Pennsylvania to develop a unified robotics program and competition. On Wednesday, September 18, educators from those school districts met at Woodland Hills High School for a day of professional development that focused on how to build and develop the programs in each of their school districts.
The unified robotics program pairs neurotypical and neurodiverse students in a competitive yet collaborative environment, all while developing their skills as communicators, engineers, problem solvers, and more. Each team features a mix of regular education and special education students as they work together to score as many points as they can on VEX Robotics’ VEX IQ Competition Rapid Relay field. Woodland Hills has partnered with VEX Robotics over the past three years to integrate a K-12 robotics curriculum into the district and to launch after-school clubs like the middle school competitive robotics team at Dickson Preparatory STEAM Academy, the Mother-Daughter Robotics Club at Rankin Community Center, and a VEX IQ elementary competitive robotics team that is new this school year.
The task in Rapid Relay seems relatively straightforward - pilot a robot through coding or a controller to collect a yellow ball on the playing surface, line up a shot, and catapult the ball into one of four scoring areas. Getting there, however, takes practice and teamwork. The robots have to meet certain standards, but they can be modified within those parameters. Don’t like how it drives? Swap out one type of wheel for another. Having trouble with accuracy? Maybe a shorter, softer toss would work.
The goal is to provide an environment that promotes respect, empathy, and collaboration between students with and without special needs, all while fostering a fun and competitive atmosphere. All students are welcome, and no experience is necessary to be part of the program. The program is adaptable in order to accommodate students of all backgrounds and needs, which helps promote a diverse and inclusive environment.
Wednesday’s training introduced the VEX Robotics kits and the Rapid Relay game to the educators who were unfamiliar with it, and it enabled more experienced educators to share their personal experiences working with VEX Robotics.
The educators also learned about the role of engineering notebooks, which students will use to document their ideas, designs, successes, failures, and general thoughts about their robots during the process. The notebooks help ensure team members are contributing equally and document how different team members contributed to various tasks. It also encourages students to reflect on major developments or important milestones in their project.
Over the next few months, the schools will work to develop their programs, encourage students to join their teams, build their robots, test them out, and prepare for the VEX Unified Robotics Competition on December 13 at Woodland Hills High School.
The Woodland Hills team is being run by Tina Dietrich, the district’s Director of STEAM and Innovation. The team will meet after school weekly in Room E207 at the high school. Interested students should contact Ms. Dietrich at [email protected] to sign up.
