Robotics Students Engineer Pinball Machines

The Edison Maker Space at Crossroads’ 21st Street Campus was temporarily transformed this month into a makeshift arcade.

 

The tables in the center of the room were lined with pinball machines that had been designed and engineered by eighth-grade robotics students, who took turns presenting their games and explaining the work that went into them.

 

The students constructed their machines over the course of the fall semester using the design thinking process, which helped them define problems, create solutions and test their products while always keeping in mind the experience of potential users.

 

“I wanted them to understand how you can use the design thinking process to solve a problem, and how to leverage empathy,” Middle School Technology Coordinator Dori Friedman said. “If you’re going to build a pinball machine and nobody wants to play it, what’s the point?”

 

Through challenges issued by Dori, students learned how to program touch sensors, ultrasonic sensors and color sensors. Those tests prepared them for programming robots that had to conquer a maze.

 

“I really want them to understand how to use the technology, but then I also want them to think outside the box about how they could apply it to something else,” Dori said.

 

In previous years, her students have used robots to recreate an “Angry Birds”-style game; connect a string of consecutive tasks in a School hallway; and face off in spirited mechanical battles.

 

This time, Dori’s robotics students built pinball machines for specific users—Bugs Bunny, for example—with the help of sensors, laser cutters, 3-D printing and ingenuity.

 

“You have to understand what your client wants and built it for them so it’s perfectly suited,” student Addison Davis said.

 

Many of the students had never done robotics work before, but they demonstrated a command of the fundamental concepts and techniques by the end of their 13 building sessions.

 

“I was really excited when we saw what we did over the semester come together and actually work,” student Alberto Mancarella said.