LEGO yuh mind!
Published: Wednesday | January 25, 2012
Martin Baxter, Gleaner Writer
In the basement of a Jacks Hill address is a workshop envied by children the world over - more than 35,000 LEGO pieces in all shapes and sizes, meticulously categorised in order of colour and function.
Every few minutes, a youngster from Campion College comes and retrieves a single LEGO piece and takes it back to his work desk. This young man, 11-year-old Dylan Chin, is building a robotic car and using LEGO as its structure.
"This is what an axle is," he explained, giving The Gleaner a lesson in this seemingly sophisticated form of child's play.
"It allows you to put pieces such as gears, wheels and axle connectors on to them, and connector pins are used to join the beams, which are the main hardware of the robot that keep it together. So these pieces are essential for a robot because, without them, the robot would not stay together, or it would not be able to run as smoothly on the board."
In this basement, which is fitted with blackboards, a comprehensive inventory area and a work table, LEGO is no longer just a toy; it is the building block of life.
Empowering lives
Youngsters use the multi-coloured blocks to learn the complex study of robotics, creating their own designs and bringing them to life with the NXT LEGO brick. Fully programmable, with motor, sensor and USB ports, the NXT LEGO brick becomes the brain behind the robot and the bridge between designer and the design.
Dylan is one of 10 youngsters packed into the basement of Marvin Hall, founder of Halls of Learning, a Jamaica-based organisation dedicated to empowering the lives of people through education. The youngsters are participating in one of Hall's 'LEGO Yuh Mind' robotics workshops, offered as a summer programme, after-school activity and inner-city outreach.
Hall, who has a background in teaching, mathematics and computer science, is using the LEGO as an educational vector that can be embraced by all due to its simplicity. He said that for the next generation of Jamaica's engineers and scientists, LEGO is the perfect start.
"Children have an innate curiosity regardless of their background," said Hall, whose voice had to compete with the shrills of excitement from the children.
Building life skills
"Regardless of their class, once we put them in the experience, then as time passes, they become more and more experienced. Generally, the difference between someone who has never had a robotics workshop and is now 18 years old and someone who has been having a robotics workshop since he/she was eight is just two different levels of outlook on life and solving problems of thinking," he said.
"And it's not necessarily that Person A is brighter than Person B, it's really just what kinds of experiences they've (had) and how that positions them to solve problems in the future."
And this can be seen in the aspirations of some of the kids that make up the 'LEGO Yuh Mind' advanced after-school class.
Dylan says when he grows up he wants to be an aerospace engineer. Twelve-year-old Nathan Campbell, who attends Jamaica College, says he wants to be a robotics engineer. "I want to build cars and planes," he told The Gleaner.
"It is about inspiring the next generation of inventors, engineers, scientists, yes, but not everybody is going to become a scientist, okay?" Hall added.
"In another way, it's about developing a set of lifelong skills, you know. Your logical thinking is applicable in any field, your problem solving ability is applicable in any field, your sequential thinking, procedural thinking, your creativity, your ability to work on a team with people."
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120125/lead/lead3.html
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