Circles Speed and Proportion Dynamic Lesson Demo Talk Given at NCTM Annual Convention 2012 URL: http://tertl.com/test/te/c13-maiasaura3/TE1.

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Text of Demo presentation (Title - slide 0) My name is Ricky Carter and I teach at Lesley University in Cambridge MA. During the last two years I had the opportunity to work on a new project to explore the potential of using robotics programming to engage students in algebraic thinking. The work I am going to be sharing with you was developed under a National Science Foundation (SBIR) grant titled: Algebra Immersion Robotics. The grant focused on developing both an algebra oriented robot programming language and a programming environment that would allow Middle school students to control and program a wireless robots to interact with its environment: to move around the room, doing things like: following paths, avoiding obstacles , following people, dancing, playing tag with other robots, and even speaking and generating music. And -we designed the curriculum so that in order to accomplish many of these things students need to represent their commands and interactions using algebraic expressions. The environment was designed to interact in real time with an actual physical robot that moved around the room - but part of the development involved also creating a onscreen virtual robot that you could also program - that would simulate the physical robot. We also developed a number of what we came to call: "programming free" mathematics lessons that use the robot, a set of math tools, and the screen based robot environment and do not demand programming. Today I want to share one of those lessons with you - one that focuses on proportional relationships and eventually expressing those relationships algebraically.

One of our goals has been to create a curriculum that will be called Robot Math and in the design of the programming platform we did two things: First we built in a series of algebraic tools that students can use at any time and Second we built in the ability to develop interactive slide shows - as part of the programming environment - and the slide shows can be developed. modified and used by curriculum developers, or teachers, or students. These interactive slides can be used to create simple demonstrations, tutorials for students, or independent interactive challenges. They can also be used by students to present their own projects, or by teachers or developers to create whole class dynamic classroom lessons.

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What I am going to do this afternoon is show you an example of one of these dynamic nonprogramming based classroom lessons using the Robot Math environment and the virtual screen based Robot. Because of limited time I will just step us through some highlights from a set of interactive lessons that would involve a much longer multi-step time period in a classroom - that is: what I am going to take you through is not something I would expect to do in one class but in its compact form I hope it will give you a feel for the interactive whole class experience such an environment can provide. And I am interested in your thoughts about the potential of such technology based environments for supporting classroom mathematics learning - in this context and potentially in others. To give you an overview: This lesson sequence provides a pathway to engage students with proportional relationships and using a scaling factor to represent them. And eventually representing a proportional relationship in terms of algebraic expressions that can be used to control the robot. The robot activity involves driving a virtual robot in a circular path at different speeds. Slide Intro This is the blank robot programming screen - there is a menu bar across the top allow students access to tools and components such as the virtual robot. And a window to write programs. I will take a brief aside to show you an example of its use without a slide show. (create a physics world and get a robot - get a code buffer and type in When pressed ("F") motor 100 100 Click off the code buffer!!!!!! Use the F key to move the robot But the environment is designed so that you don't need to program to explore mathematics in a robot context. .. Because The environment is also set up so I can create interactive screens with components and text on them and save them and then display them in turn.

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Now let's take a look at slides from the non-programming Proportions unit. Slide 1: motor and the virtual robot So we start with, On the right the virtual robot - the white circle - in its robot window. On the left, as I mentioned, is what we call a code buffer - which just means a place where you can type in commands. In this slide the motor command is part of the setup of the slide. The robot has two motors and To drive the robot you use this motor command to turn on the robot's motors: [for example Motor 100 100 Once the code buffer recognizes the command it puts a box around it and includes a button to turn it on and off. ] To turn on the command you click the button - to turn it off you just click it again. One question is why do you give the motor command two numbers or inputs (as they are called in programming)? Some kids use the motor command without thinking through how it works So the first few slides in the lesson focus on reviewing the relationship between the motor command and the robot wheel speeds. So let's take a look at the Robot's wheels. Slide 2: the robots wheels revealed This shows the physical robot - on its back (Some of you may know about a company named iRobot that created a room sweeping robot called the Rhomba - the robot we used is a hobby version of the Rhomba.) The picture shows that the robot has two wheels. Each wheel is driven by a different motor so you have two inputs to the motor command to control the speed of each of the wheels. (click Text) Click Text - to show Motor 100 100 Left Right The first motor number controls the speed of the left wheel and the second one controls the speed of right wheel. So, Now on to a challenge..

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Slide 3: Curve Path Driving Our first challenge is to move the robot on a curved path moving around to the right. As you saw motor 100 100 moves it in a straight line. -Demo forward again and drag it back. -Drive it forward again - [and now ask] - by the way: How could we get it to go backwards using the motor command instead of having to drag it? (interactive part..) (negative numbers) Motor -100 -100 One of My favorite Stories is of a middle school student who discovered this experimented and discovered he could get the robot to rotate with setting one negative and the other positive and he got so excited about using negative numbers he exclaimed: "Mrs Jones never taught us this!" And for me that captured one of the things we are trying to do: provide an environment where students can use math to make something happen, to get control of some part of their world. Now back to the challenge: [penup reset pen] Driving the robot along a curved path. We will keep the left motor at 100 - if we want it to run in a curved path turning to the right - what should we do to the right motor? (pen ) Motor 100 50 (try it) (penup - reset - pen) Now what if I want to make a larger curve? Pen Motor 100 75 (penup - reset - pen) And now make a smaller curve? Motor 100 25 And what shape would it make if we allowed it to keep going? (a circle) So - Once these relationships are established we turn to the main focus of the lesson: The relationship between the wheel speeds needed to Drive the robot around a given circle [Penup reset clear]

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Slide 4: Circle Driving Here is the circle and our challenge is: if the left wheel is going 100 what speed should the right wheel go to make it drive the circle will it be more or less than 100? (less) (get a value and try it.) 50.60 (75).65..63 [Then through trial and revision we will get to 63] Try it. [Once that is established ] [Clear Penup] Now what if we wanted to drive the robot around the circle at a faster speed? Slide 5: Faster Driving We can enter our findings in a table (do so 100 63) and ask - what if we wanted to have the robot drive around the circle at a faster speed - say left wheel 200 (enter it). What would the right wheel speed need to be to keep it on the circle? [Again get student input - and try it] [get To 200 126 (enter it) and establish how that was figured out..(doubled)] At this point, once students seem to feel comfortable with this idea and , for students who are not familiar with proportions - I would point out that we are looking at a situation where the two numbers are related to each other In this situation the value of right wheel speed depends on the value of the left wheel speed. - as we increased one we had to increase the other. And I would talk with students about a relationships where - if you double one number you have to double the other - and that this is one characteristic of a relationship that is called a proportion. (Where else: recipes, cost and tax, buying gas, speed and distance. Where not.) If this IS a proportional relationship What if the left wheel was 400? What speed would we have to set the right wheel to - in order to get it to stay on the circle.. 252 (penup, clear, reset, pen) try it and enter it in the table Then you can also ask about 50[only go 1/4 way] So - when you have this kind of doubling phenomena in the world - when you double one and you also need to double the other. This kind of relationship between two numbers is called a proportion. (where else: recipes, cost and tax, buying gas, speed and distance.) (Penup, Reset, Clear)

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What else can we find out about this pattern? Graphs are good tools for finding patters - so we can turn to RobotMath's graph tool -. Slide 6. Finding a pattern This graph is set up to plot the left wheel speed on the X axis and the right wheel speed on the Y axis - what we want to see is: If we keep the robot on the circle - as we change the left wheel speeds (shown on the X axis) what will happen to the Right wheel speeds (on the Y axis) What kind of a pattern do you think our data points will make on the graph? (ask audience) and then add table1 See any patterns (line) - this is another characteristic of proportional relationships - plotting the data on a graph creates a straight line pattern and in proportions the line will go through the origin (0,0) - lets try to plot that and see if it lines up..(add to table 0,0) - watch does it line up? ( we do not create the actual line graph at this point, in the design of this lesson that comes later after we establish the scaling factor) [Scaling Factor] So far we have worked out values by doubling and halving - but what if we wanted the left wheel value to be something like 281? How can we figure out the right wheel speed if we have some value like 281 for the left wheel speed? Proportional relationships are also characterized by what is called a scaling factor. That means to figure out one number from another you need to scale it up or down. How can we explore this? In this case we will add a tool that can help us do that: a function machine (Slide 7: What is the scaling factor) On this slide you see a blue rectangle with input and output arrows on it - which is A function machine that allows us to explore input output relationships. It is kind of a cross between a calculator and a spread sheet but is used to model the idea of a function with input and output imagery. Let's add a left wheel speed of 281 to our table and then see how to use the function machine to compute right wheel speed. In this case if we start with 281 will we have to scale it up or down? And the question is - by how much?

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To figure that out - Lets start with a friendly example: What kind of a scale factor could we use to change 100 into 63 - what would we have to do mathematically to 100 to make it 63?........ [Follow suggestions.. once kids suggest multiplying by .63 ] - Let's try it You put in a value at the top (100), that is the input - then inside the machine you need to operate on the input to produce an output. so inside the function machine we put (input * . 63) and then click on it to run it - to see if the output result at the bottom is in fact 63. (Click the start button) Then you can try a different piece of your data: try 200 - have them predict from the table what should come out. etc 400. 50.. Then try it for 281 - get the output of 177 and try motor 281 177. So the scale factor of .63 works for the values we have worked out so far. But Will it work for all values of left motor speed? Now that we know the scaling factor - one way to answer the "all values" question is to go back to the graph and write an equation based on .63 and see that it's line fits our data and goes through the origin (0,0). Let's try that - [Penup Reset Clear] Slide 8. Verifying the Pattern And We can check our scale factor against the data by creating an equation using our scaling factor here we can add an equation to our graph - we have Y= (and Y stands for the right wheel) and we want to use our scaling factor to compute the Yright wheel speed from the Xleft wheel speed. So we type in .63*Xleft - see how the graph matches our data. = Lets add our 281 to the table and see if it also lands on the line. (281 17.7) But the graph is rather abstract And what I want to show is another more active way of using a variable and creating an expression. What if we wanted to use what we have learned to be able to create a tool that would allow us to dynamically change the robot's speed as it moves around the circle? Slide 9. Dynamic Speed Changes

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We will do this by using a variable that will allow us to vary the speed so that instead of speed being static we can dynamically change the speed using a variable and use a slider tool to actually vary it. (fill in slider with lspeed - set it to 0 to 500), change the motor command inputs to lspeed and lspeed*.63, and then drive it and slide. You can then extend this by changing the slider range to -500 to 500. (do so and drive it with the slider) Now I have zoomed through these tools and steps - and in full curriculum the kids would be exploring and connecting to these ideas through doing their own investigations over time But the overarching goal here is to provide students with a different and more active and concrete experience with proportional relationships - that is a proportional relationship that they (or you) can use to make something happen. Thank you - questions - and if anyone wants further information you can email me: Slide 10 ==============================

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e.g. Kids would make their own mystery circles and challenge other kids to figure out the motor inputs needed to drive it at different speeds, and the final challenge would be to create a slider that used a variable to be able to dynamically drive around someone's mystery circle in either direction.

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Speed Circles and Proportions Table of slides Content 1. Slide 4: Issue of motor commands and how they work - and generating a curve - leads into driving around a circle - for a particular circle - what are the motor command values? 100 63 Students work in a conjecture - trial and revision environment - where they can generate a hypothesis, try it out, get feedback and revise (provides opportunities for approximation, mathematical reasoning , develops their number sense) 2. Slide 5: How increase speed and keep it on the circle? 100, 200,400, 50 Students generate data that they can then analyze. The data is thus meaningful. And again work through mathematical reasoning of doubling and halving. 3. Slide 6: Plot points that make a line pattern. See patterns (doubling and halving. And plotting points that make a line) and identify the relationship as a proportion Slide 7: - then Introduce the idea of scaling factor - How scale 100 to 63 - conjecture and test with an input output function machine. - and determine that .63 is the scaling factor that works for all values - even new ones! Slide 9: Represent this in an equation and see that it fits all the data and beyond Students experience the idea of a scaling factor as a powerful tool - based on the data they have helped generate Implement it as an equation to see a graph match their data 4. Slide 10(43): a variable and slider to vary the speed Generalize using a variable that you can implement with a slider. Attach the scaling factor idea to the idea of a variable here is the bad ULR: (that it goes to) http://n205-173-153-11.lesley.edu/cgi-bin/wireless-info.cgi? &token=3791&dest=tertl.com/test/te/c13-maiasaura3/TE1.html

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