Rockets & Robots – Ashtabula County Summer Science AcademyAverill, Abbey; Marrison, David L; & Hoyt, Jenna (39 Wall Street, Jefferson, Ohio 44047)

BACKGROUND:OSU Extension in Ashtabula County allowed youth to explore the world of rockets and robots during the summer of 2012 during the Summer Science Academy program. Using the resources from a $10,000 grant from the Morrison Foundation, OSU Extension introduced science principles at two weeks of mini-sessions at 5 public libraries, two intensive all-day science days and at a week-long 4-H resident camp. Each of these events included hands-on experiments to teach the concepts of science of motion and robotics.

Some of the experiments which the students completed during the Summer Science Academy included: mousetrap marshmallow catapults, alka-seltzer reactions, mentos diet coke rockets, pop bottle rockets, life-size catapults, Estes Gnome rockets, brushbots, and colorbots. The students were also able to use Ohio’s 4-H new Robotics project titled Next Technology. Participants learned what a robot is, how to build one using LEGO®, and how to program a LEGO® robot to interact with its environment via touch, sound, light, and ultrasonic sensors.

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Above: Abbey Averill helps youth learn how to program a LEGO® robot. Below: 4-H Campers prep to launch their pop bottle rocket.

PARTICIPANTS: 194 youth participated in the 2 hour

introductory classes on science of motion and robotics workshops at five area libraries.

35 youth participated in the 6 hour Science in Motion program.

32 youth participated in the 6 hour Robotics workshop.

186 youth participated in the science curriculum during Ashtabula County's week long 4-H Camp at the end of June.

IMPACT: 100% of the 32 youth in attendance at

the 6 hour Robotics session reported they learned something new.

78.1% of the attendees of the one-day Robotics workshop indicated they would like to join a Robotics 4-H club.

For the 186 youth who attended the week long camp, they indicated their overall camp experience to be exceptional with a mean score 9.27 (s.d. 1.17) on a 10 point scale (1=worse experience and 10=best experience).

The campers rated the Science of Motion activities as their favorite camp activities (3.76/4.00).

The campers reported a mean gain for Robotics of 1.60 and a 1.04 gain for Science of Motion activities (4.00 scale).

FUTURE PROGRAMMING:The success of the 2012 Summer Science Academy led to a county-wide robotics 4-H club being started in the Fall of 2013. In addition, a grant from the Ohio 4-H Foundation was received in 2013 which has increased our robotics supply to 13 LEGO® robots. With this amount of robots, we are now able include this curriculum as part of our school enrichment program.

YOUTH REACTIONS:One youth remarked, “I never knew science could be this cool!” Another child stated, “The robots were cool. It was neat to program it to push the loaf of bread off the table.” While another said, “The science activities made camp even better than normal.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION:Contact Abbey Averill at 440-576-9008 or averill.10@osu.edu . You may also leave your business card in the envelope below for more information.

OSU EXTENSION

CFAES provides research and related educational programs to clientele on a nondiscriminatory basis. For

more information: http://go.osu.edu/cfaesdiversity.

A 4-H camper works with the Brushbot she built during the Summer Science Academy.

This Science Academy youth works with LETry Robotic Car and has joined the County Robotic 4-H Club.