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Their view: Don’t over look your mental health

Our view: We are all Americans, and we need to act like it

<p>DALLAS TWP. &#8212; Told to program the tiny spheroid droid to roll along a rectangular path, Emma Eick and her teammates flipped the challenge and made the Ozobot travel the shape of a heart, thus almost literally thinking outside the box.</p><p>The challenge &#8212; one of four each group of students faced during an event marking national STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Day, was to direct the robot to conduct specific tasks by coloring in bar codes along a black rectangle drawn on a plain piece of white paper. Different strips of colored bars drawn by the students would direct the tiny bot &#8212; smaller than a tennis ball &#8212; to speed up, slow down, turn, spin and perform other actions.</p><p>At first it looked like Emma&#8217;s team, one of many in the fourth grade class at Dallas Elementary, had stuck to those rules, with the automaton dutifully and flawlessly executing it&#8217;s orders as it ran the rim of the rectangle. Then Emma flipped the paper to show another drawing, in the traditional shape of a Valentine heart, with bar codes included in three places along the outline.</p><p>They cheered when the mini machine easily navigated the curves &#8212; something they weren&#8217;t sure it could do, based on the instructions. And they clapped and even jumped when it stopped briefly enough to spin a few times just for show.</p><p>All told, there were four types of stations, two of each type, set up in the school gym Thursday morning. Each class got a crack at each station. Along with the Ozobots, students took turns building towers out of cardboard cylinders and sheets, programming computer animations, and figuring out how to build a sort of cantilever extension out of domino tiles.</p><p>&#8220;This is year three of our STREAM initiative,&#8221; Principal Thomas Travers said, using an expanded version of STEM that adds Robotics and Arts. The district has a coach who, in turn trains other teachers, with a head STREAM teacher in each school.</p><p>Students have done projects ranging from &#8220;building a better dog house,&#8221; to figuring out innovative uses of left-over Halloween candy, he said.</p><p>At Thursday&#8217;s event, students reacted repeatedly with part wonder and a lot of joy when they got one of their assignments to work out. While Eick and company had clearly enjoyed building their cardboard tower, asked what even they liked the best the answer was as instant as it was unanimous.</p><p>&#8220;This one!&#8221; they said of the Ozobot exercise</p><p>Why?</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really cool with all the different colors,&#8221; Lily Horsefield smiled, referring to the color strips drawn to &#8220;code&#8217; the robot.</p><p>&#8220;You can draw different things, Emma added.</p><p>Which, considering the shape of their out-of-the-box robot trail, got to the heart of the matter.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Emma Eick, Ainsley Slacktish, Jenna Krispin and Lily Horsefield try and remove pieces from a structure they built at the Dallas Elementary School STEM day last week. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/web1_TTL110918STEM1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Emma Eick, Ainsley Slacktish, Jenna Krispin and Lily Horsefield try and remove pieces from a structure they built at the Dallas Elementary School STEM day last week. </caption0><photoCredit0>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/web1_TTL110918STEM2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Christopher Flannigan stacks dominos on a diving board structure during the Dallas Elementary STEM day. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/web1_TTL110918STEM2.jpg</photo1><caption1>Christopher Flannigan stacks dominos on a diving board structure during the Dallas Elementary STEM day. </caption1><photoCredit1>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/web1_TTL110918STEM3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Ava Pugliese looks at her partner, Sophis Kong, while they play the game Simon involving Playdoh. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/web1_TTL110918STEM3.jpg</photo2><caption2>Ava Pugliese looks at her partner, Sophis Kong, while they play the game Simon involving Playdoh. </caption2><photoCredit2>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit2></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Dallas STEM event lets students outside the box</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Putting the heart into science: Dallas STEM event lets students outside the box