Remember when you were a little kid and building with Legos was the ultimate challenge?
Or were you more of a dress up and play house kind of child?
Advocates of the former probably would jump at the chance to take a course like Professor Bean's Introduction to Engineering class. This semester, section 19 of ENGR 162 is using their childhood play in a whole new way than what they are used to.
On Friday evening, Dec. 6 at six, the class will present what Bean called "the first ever E-school Robotic Marching Band."
It all started this summer when Bean bought seven Lego Mindstorm Robotic Kits online.
"I wanted to develop a class where kids would get their hands dirty," Bean said. "I had grandiose plans of doing something like they do on 'Junkyard Wars.'"
The show, shown on the Learning Channel, basically involves creating working machines from a pile of junk, he said.
Due to insufficient time and safety concerns, though, Bean worked with a colleague and his son to find an alternative.
As the three men tinkered with the toys, they thought about the real world of engineering and how modeling plays a role in building.
"Rather than having small groups compete, I wanted a project that would let seven groups work individually but ultimately integrate," Bean said. "Something that would represent what engineering is like these days."
According to Bean, his colleague's son actually came up with the idea of a robotic marching band.
And so the experimental class was launched this fall.
After dividing his class of 35 first-year students into seven groups of five, Bean told them their challenge.
Each week, they would have three days to go to the lab and develop their own robots, but by the end, they would have to coordinate them together.
"The students have worked very well on developing their own robots, but now they've got the challenge of getting them to all march together," he said.
"And it's much harder now because 35 people can't sit around a table and discuss it."
With all different kinds of robots such as crawlers, walkers and wheelers, the students must find a perfect harmony for this marching band.
After a semester worth of work,their ensemble hopefully will march in sync for the class' grand finale.
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