Lego Robot Vehicle Lesson Plans for Secondary Education: A Recruitment Tool

2012PDFTech Report2011-092142RoboticsStudentsEducationMotivationIntelligent transportation systemsRecruitingTraffic congestionTransportation engineersComputer programmingTraffic congestionMiddle school studentsRoboticsTransportation engineersMotivation (Psychology)Research HubFloridaUnited StatesUniversity of Florida. Center for Multimodal Solutions for Congestion MitigationBarker, NinaUniversity of Florida. Dept. of Civil and Coastal EngineeringNTL-PLANNING AND POLICY-EducationNTL-INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS-INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMSNTL-HIGHWAY/ROAD TRANSPORTATION-HIGHWAY/ROAD TRANSPORTATIONUS Transportation CollectionRobotics is a great way to get kids excited about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) topics. It is also highly effective in stimulation development of teamwork and self-confidence. This project provides transportation-related lesson plans for middle school-aged students utilizing LEGO Minsdstorms NXT robots to foster interest in the transportation engineering profession as a career choice. A series of lesson plans for fifth throught eigth graders was developed. The first lesson plan is general introduction to engineering and transprotation through the used of videos, slides and interactive discussion. The next four lessons are a hands-on guide exposing students to basic computer programming, mathematics as it relates to the tasks, and the robots as tools. The lesson plans theme focuses on a significant area of the future of transportation-intelligent vehicle