FRC Ship Day! San Diego Regional Here We Come

Well it was a long weekend for everyone but we are finished and I am happy to present to you Team 3477 Chaos Vortex's Rookie Robot General Disarray!

The name of the robot has a dual meaning. First with the name Chaos Vortex we have decided to make our mascot Professor Chaos from South Park and his sidekick is named General Disarray. The second reason is to honor the man who made our robotics team possible, Ray Trinidad. He is our school's dean of students and found the funding for it to start. He is also a huge perpetrator of puns and so we thought that the play on words would further honor him.

Unlike many other robots we have seen, we decided to go with a robot that picked up the tubes from the inside as opposed to a claw from the outside. We also have a camera that provides a first person view of the field. We hope this will provide a better view of the field since the tubes will obscure the driver's vision.

It being our rookie year we decided to go for the low goals but the medium goals are a possibility. We are going to work on the height and tension of the bands when we actually get onto a field on March 10th.

We wanted to make sure that we built a great robot but however it does at competition, the students learned so much. They can honestly say that they have built a robot from scratch. One of my sophomores learned LabView programming which will benefit him next year but also with potential future employers who use it (e.g. Disney, LAPD Bomb Squad, Qualcomm, and many other prominent engineering firms). Others are learning Autodesk CAD, welding, soldering, and various power tools. I wouldn't trade that for any award in the world.

In other exciting robot news, we learned that our team is now sponsored by General Dynamics! I could not be more grateful to one of our mentors Nate, for helping us secure this support as well as being here throughout the season. We could not have done this without him. The support from our other mentor Mike was also much appreciated for his machine shop and expertise.

If you are in the South County in San Diego you might have caught that our team was featured on the front page of the Union Tribune (another picture). Such a wonderful memento for my students to honor their hard work. Our team is working very hard to make sure that robotics becomes equally popular to sports and it was nice to have that recognized.

While the late nights have stopped, the work continues with preparing the marketing materials, programming, working on the minibot and the other 30lbs of parts we were allowed to withhold. Just a couple of quick weeks until the competition and we can see how General Disarray and Chaos Vortex does!

If you would like to follow our robotics team check out the Chaos Vortex Facebook page and @ChaosVortex on Twitter.

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New Robotics 2011 Game Logomotion Released!

Do I seem more tired than usual? If so it is because the FIRST Robotics Competition had its Kickoff this Saturday and we have worked all weekend. If you are a subscriber or longtime follower of BrokenAirplane then you know how passionate I am about the power of Robotics to change a students life. In my opinion, robotics teams are the purest form of learning and allow students to unleash their creativity and potential while learning valuable STEM skills (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

Each year the game changes, and each one is always so unique and well designed that even after doing this for years, I still get as excited as my students to start designing (perhaps more so). This year's game is Logomotion and it celebrates the 20th year anniversary of FIRST Robotics. Watch the 3 minute video to find out what it is all about.

Pretty amazing huh? What is even more amazing is that thousands of teams are working right now to create their own unique designs. Completely led and run by students with feedback from mentors, just wait and see the incredible stuff students come up with.

Our team went to the San Diego Kickoff and had a blast. It is their Rookie FRC year and I am excited to share it with them. We are a relatively small team of about 8 students but thanks to the incredibly generous support of our sponsors NASA, JC Penny, our after school program, and private donations we are well equipped to handle the job. I am also incredibly grateful to the 3 engineers and 1 math teacher/programmer who have joined the Chaos Vortex team. 

I will provide updates on our progress as the season progresses. If you know a FRC mentor at your school, please give them a smile and an encouraging word as we tend to work an extra 20+ hours in addition to our regular teaching duties. We love every minute but after a couple of weeks it gets pretty exhausting.

Let me know if I or my team can do anything to support other teams. We are rookies but we have a few years of VEX under our belt and we love to help! We are always looking to start new teams and if you would like to come by and see our VEX or FRC team in action let us know so we can help get you going for next year.

6 weeks until ship date.

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Winff Is The Best Free Video Converter Around

If you are relatively new to creating a classroom utilizing 21st century technology , you might not know what the need for this program is. What exactly is a file converter? Just like the pieces of paper in your filing cabinet, everything on your computer is a file of some sort. As you and your students start to create media  (see my previous post of the amazing 17 year old backyard chemist) you are going to begin generating all kinds of files (pictures, video, music/podcasts, etc).

These files can get really large, and that can be difficult to manage on your computer or the Internet. For example when I first record a tutorial on CamStudio, it can get up to about 30 Megabytes of memory (which is too large to send by Gmail, but not too large to share on Google Docs). When my teaching partner created animated recreations of Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" (Link to video) the files were 100 times larger than that (which was too large for Google Docs or YouTube to accept them for Uploading). 

The solution is WinFF, which easily converts your files from a larger file to a different or smaller file so you can share it (Email, Facebook, YouTube, CD/USB Drive, etc). There are a lot of other types of file converters out there but this one has been around for a while and is widely accepted as both the easiest and best out there.

How to use WinFF:

Step 1: Go to WinFF.org, click download (this software only works on Windows or Linux), and install.

Step 2: Start up WinFF and you should see this:

Step 3: Click Add and select your files. I have a couple of video tutorials that I made for my students, but you could add any sound or video file that you have.

One of the features of WinFF that you should take advantage of is the ability to convert more than one file at a time. This can be a blessing when you have 25-300 students' work to convert. If you have more than one file, then just click "Add" and select all of the files before clicking "Open".

Step 4: Now you need to select what you are converting your file to. There are many options but here are the ones I use most often and why.

• Audio - If you click on this one then you will most likely want to click on the menu below it and choose "MP3" from "Device Preset" as this is the most popular choice out there (e.g. iPods)
• AVI - This is the most versatile video format out there. If you send this to someone they will certainly be able to play it or download free software like VLC Media Player to watch it. CamStudio automatically creates your video in this format. Note: These files tend to be the largest so while you gain versatility and quality, you may limit your portability or ability to upload to YouTube if it is too large (more than 2000 Megabytes)
• iPod/iTunes - I mention this as it is so popular but I would actually suggest you do not convert your files to it because you will be unable to play your files easily on other computers or hardware that isn't made by Apple.
• MPEG - Similar to AVI, a little smaller in size and if you want to store subtitles, this is the way to go.
• Quicktime - Another proprietary format by Apple that I would also encourage you to steer clear of for it's lack of portability (requires the Quicktime player).
• Websites - This one has a misleading name, what you are actually converting it to is a format called "Flash" (flv). This format is made by Adobe (the same who created Photoshop) and while it is proprietary, it is so widespread on the Internet that you will have no problems finding a player for it.
• This is the one I use for my video tutorials because it will turn a large file into an incredibly small file suitable for emailing for transfering by USB. 
• You may lose some quality so if you are uploading it to YouTube and are under the 2 Gigabyte limit then just keep it as a AVI.

Finally go to the "Output Folder" selecton. This is where you would like your converted files to be saved to. Personally, I always have them go to the Desktop so they are easy to find and then move them later, but if you have IT restrictions on that you might have to use another location so just click that button and choose the appropriate place.

You are ready to go! Just click the "Convert" button and a "Command Window" will popup. If you have never seen a DOS command window before you might be a bit overwhelmed, but don't worry the program is taking care of everything automatically. In fact this is the real program, WinFF is just an easy to use GUI (Graphical User Interface) that does all of the work for you after you set it up.

You can keep working on basic tasks like Email and such but it would be best to leave it alone while it is working. Depending on the size and number of files it could take anywhere from 5 minutes to hours so plan ahead. When it is done you will see this on the Command Window:

and push any key. Then your files are wherever you saved them to. Congratulations you have converted your files!

While that may have seemed like a lot of instructions, it will take minutes to get ready. The potentially long part is the conversion but it is as easy a job as your going to find.

If you need additional advanced features (like frame rate, size, quality, etc) click on the "Options button in the upper right. While the majority of you will never need this, if you have a particular situation then Google "WinFF and ________" and you will find that there are always helpful people willing to share tips (isn't Open Source wonderful).

Now your files are ready to be shared and I look forward to seeing them. If you would like, please post links to an example you are proud of in the comments so we can share ideas and suggestions. Good luck and happy converting!

Additional Thoughts and Resources on Video Tutorials for the Classroom

So much information, it can't be contained in just a couple of posts. Here is one more idea:

Family Question:

If you have created your video tutorials, it is highly likely that your students are going to watch them at home. If that is the case then you have entered a sacred place to your students. This is where their tightest circle of trust, encouragement, and motivation comes from apart from their friends. Unfortunately, the classroom and the home all too often interact only when there is something wrong. There is no doubt that if a family is on board with  student's education, then the student will be more engaged and interested.

How do you do this? With the family question. Pose a fun interesting question tied to the content that the family can puzzle over. I am not referring to y=2x+4 per se but perhaps a puzzle or question that can provide good table conversation. Some examples are Exeter Academy Math Questions, Drexel Math Forum, Lateral Thinking Puzzles, for Humanities teachers there is NPR and TED Talks to spur on discussions/debates. I once gave an assignment asking students to start a book club at their home to take turns discussing their favorite book but you could also provide the articles for them to discuss.

Additional Resources:

• Khan Academy this man has created great quality videos on almost every topic you can imagine. Humanities, math, science, he has it all.
• MIT Open Courseware watch the videos, read the notes, check out the problems, be a part of the classes from the world renowned MIT.
• Podcasts from Stanford
• and of course, YouTube's special education site.

Creating More Patient Problem Solvers

This video is well worth the 12 minutes of your time. It is specifically referring to math but if you read between the lines, you will find that it is applicable to us all if we hope to facilitate the growth of our student's reasoning skills.

Ted Talk - Dan Meyer

Creating Video Tutorials for your Class Part 1

Welcome back, in the last post, I referred to video tutorials as an incredible asset to your classroom and some of they benefits you would see from using them. I have taught with and without them and, I can truly say that this is worth your time.

Why should you consider making video tutorials:
If you were to ask educators what they consider the most time consuming and frustrating part of their classroom, I believe they would overwhelmingly say that it is the lecturing. The preparation and gathering of the facts, the creation of a delivery method (whiteboard, powerpoint, demonstration, etc), blank stares from students, repetition and hopes of retention, wear and tear on your voice and mind from repeating yourself 3-6 times a day, and the list continues. When I have surveyed teachers as to why they continue to lecture, they say it is the best way to deliver a large amount of content.

This is true, there is no faster way to deliver content. However, studies as well as my own classroom experience continually show that lecturing is one of the most difficult ways for students to learn content. Why is lecturing such a pervasive practice? Consider that up until the last few hundred years, content was very expensive or scarce. Either you had access to a book (which required the ability to read) or you heard a lecture from someone who knew what they were talking about. This practice has continued in all levels of education around the world even though the environment has changed.  Content (books/Internet) is so pervasive now that the time has come to rethink why and how we lecture.

With so little time in the school year do we really want to spend 50-75%  of our time doing that which the Internet or textbooks can do already? But I can hear the concerns, that there is so much poor or erroneous material out there and that there is no replacement for a discussion between teacher and students to go more in depth or clear up misconceptions. I agree 100% with both of these points and I believe video tutorials is not a replacement for the teacher in the classroom but a method of freeing up the educator to personalize and encourage more in depth understanding.

However, there is in my opinion, a right way and a wrong way to implement them into your classroom. This post will talk about how to create the tutorial and the next will describe my suggestions for how to use them.

How to create video tutorials:
Creating educational video tutorials has been around for as long as the medium has existed. Yet in the last couple of years, the cost of doing so has become practically free. Inspired by Patrick Yurick, Karl Fisch, and Don Herbert I began to create Video Tutorials for my classroom.

What you need:

• Presentation Software: Open Office Impress (free) Microsoft Office Powerpoint ($$$)
• Screen Capture Software: Camstudio (free) or Camtasia ($$$ but has additional features such as editing)
• Optional:
• Webcam ($20-50, it should have a microphone built in)
• http://www.youtube.com/my_webcam (for video capture)
• WinFF (free file converter)

You have two options for creating the video and it depends on how and what kind of content you are delivering. 

Screen Capture:

1. Create a Powerpoint presentation with the content that you are going to deliver. I would encourage you to add animations that allow you to control when the content appears on the screen.
2. Start Camstudio
3. Start the presentation so it takes up the whole screen.
4. Push F8 (the keyboard shortcut to start recording with Camstudio)
5. Begin narrating through your presentation as if you were lecturing to your students, clicking through the presentation.
6. If you need to start over, push F10 to cancel and start over from step 3.
7. If you need to pause push F8 and again to unpause.
8. When you are done push F9.
9. Camstudio will then ask you to save, then it will take some time to process, and finally show you a preview. If you are happy with this then congratulations you have just completed your first video tutorial!