Garden Street Academy bridges the gap between art and the sciences with new courses that merge craftsmanship, robotics and engineering.
Middle and lower school students will soon get to learn about robotics and automation as part of an educational curriculum offered by The Lego Group that focuses on graphic design, programming and engineering.
A Lego Group consultant visited the school, at 2300 Garden St., last Thursday for staff training and the program will begin soon after the first day of school, which was Tuesday.
Science and mathematics teacher John Gomm spoke enthusiastically about the potential physics and mathematics applications of the new curriculum.
“We envision the program as a way to introduce math discretely. We don’t want any students to say, ‘I’m not good at math, I’m not going to do this,’” Gomm said. “With next generation science standards, greater focus is given to building and applied problem solving.”
Garden Street Academy’s long-term goal is to merge the Lego curriculum with its Maker’s Space program, where kids learn to use 3D printers to design everything from toy figurines to a prosthesis that could potentially be automated with Legos using a microprocessor.
“The Legos are just pieces,” Dean John Dewy said. “We could potentially use 3D printers to create our own pieces and bring them to life with robotics.”
The Lego microprocessor is a brick roughly size of a deck of cards that can communicate with a wide range of electronics. Commands can be programmed into the brick using PC inputs and connectors.
“It looks like a mini Game Boy,” Gomm said. “It has a little screen with sockets on it that can be connected to motors and other things, and Lego connectors so you can put bricks on it.”
The Lego microprocessor has built-in sensors that can detect light levels, colors and temperatures, Gomm said.
As he spoke, a nearby computer loaded with 3D modeling software communicated with one of Garden Street Academy’s two 3D printers, telling it to render a three-dimensional model of Gomm’s head.
The photo it was rendered from was taken with an iPad app. Once the software tells the it to run, the printer feeds spools of plastic string through a heating chamber and channels it onto a glass surface.
“When you design something you can print, you don’t have to rebuild the whole thing from scratch when you run into a problem,” Gomm said. “You can fix the flaws in the software and reprint.”
The school joins the ranks of Santa Barbara City College and Westmont College to introduce similar Lego-based teaching platforms.
Though long-term plans have not been fully fleshed out, the school plans to eventually integrate the Lego Robotics and Maker’s Space programs into its high school courses.
And while Lego already offers a high school curriculum, Maker’s Space is an original concept that hasn’t been fully realized yet.
Gomm said they’ve been testing the waters with plans for a design class, but nothing they think can pass the muster of University of California’s “A-G” admissions standards.
Gomm fears high schoolers will avoid the course because it won’t count for college.
“Writing a UC class from scratch in an area that isn’t well-traveled ground is a little daunting,” he said. “For now, we’re going to build it and see where it goes.”
Maker’s Space currently runs as a two-week elective as part of the school’s “New Horizons” program for middle and lower school students.
— Noozhawk intern Shaun Kahmann can be reached at skahmann@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
