Schools

Are You Smarter Than These Fifth Graders?

How seven Bernards students built a dancing robot and won a global competition without any help from an adult.

Imagine you are ten or eleven years old, and you are presented with a challenge – build a robot, teach it to move, act, dance even, all by itself, and with absolutely no help from anyone except a handful of your friends, who are your age. What would you do?

Now imagine that, still with no help from adults, you need to write, choreograph and produce a play, all of the acting will be done by you and your friends, and of course your robot, which must "change the life" of one of the characters in the play, and teach an audience about robot technology, science, structural engineering, teamwork. And, oh yeah, it's a competition. You will be competing with hundreds of other students your age from all over the U.S., and in six different countries. Now what would you do?

The answer for seven Bernards Township fifth-graders? Win.

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Six students from Cedar Hill School and one from Mount Prospect worked as teammates in this year's Destination ImagiNation DI-Bot challenge. Destination ImagiNation is an outside-the-classroom activity for students that asks its participants to complete mind-bending challenges using a blend of science and art. Over 100,000 students in more than 30 countries compete each year in a variety of age groups, first at state-level competitions and then, if they qualify, at a massive global competition, which hosts thousands.

Bernards had six teams qualify for globals this year, including the DInamite Dancers: Abbey Farina, Reed Handabaka, Jack Kendall, Kristen Rusas, Abby Tulenko and Maddie Winter from Cedar Hill and Lindsay Hultman from Mount Prospect. The all fifth-grade team competed in the third through fifth grade division. In 2008, the same group won first place at states and went to globals. The following year, they came in second in states and went to globals again.

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This year, the team won the state tournament for the second time in three years, and received the "Renaissance Award" from judges for exceptional skill in the areas of engineering, design and performance. On Saturday, May 29, the students prepared to compete at the global competition for the third straight year, facing a field of 66 teams from six countries in a competition that had never been won by a New Jersey school.

Where to Start?

The beginnings of the DInamite Dancers robot started with a circuit board and a google search about circuit boards. Nicole Rusas, mother of one of the girls on the team, acted as the team's coach, providing the space and organization, but no direct input.

"The kids know. If they are trying to figure something out, and one of my other kids starts suggesting something they'll say, 'No! No, no!" Rusas said. Any team that uses outside help is disqualified from the contest.

Nicole's daughter Kristen said the team started by finding as much information as they could through online research. They taught themselves about circuit boards, dismantled a remote control car and used the wheels as the robot's base. Then came the most challenging aspect of the design.

"They had to design and build a robot that accomplished a task without direct contact," their coach explained. "You couldn't touch it to make it go."

Two of the members on the team played piano, which led to an idea.

"We were thinking about different things that move without having anyone touching them. And someone on our team said, oh, how about a player piano?" Kristen said. The timeless magic of automated pianos, where the keys "play themselves" inspired what would become an award-winning innovative design.

The team found out everything they could about player piano technology, and then used that knowledge to give their robot life. A paint can was attached over the wheels and circuit board using a combination of wooden planks, cardboard and duct tape. Rubber strips attached to the paint can would move and flip switches, connected by wires to the circuit board and the motors. To attach the wires the kids researched soldering techniques and made the connections.

Months of tinkering, researching and hard work led to a functional, automated robot. Now the question was, what do you get it to do?

Dance With Me

The DI-Bot Challenge begins with a prompt that says, "Robotic Technology has changed our lives and made our dreams a reality. … What will Robotic Technology accomplish next? How will our lives change because of it? … Create an original story, which envisions and shows how at least one character's life may be changed by Robotic Technology."

The fifth grade students needed to write an eight-minute play that showed how their robot could influence the life of one of the characters. They soon had not only a play, but a musical, including original songs and dances.

"Their play was based on a girl who went to a new school and wasn't very popular," Nicole Rusas said.

The unpopular girl, played by Kristen Rusas, is bullied by her classmates at the outset of the play with a bluesy "Bully song." Distraught over failing to fit in at her new school and getting picked on by her classmates, the new girl goes off by herself to build a robot for the school science fair. After a series of events – and a song about robot technology – the new girl is successful in building her robot and exclaims, "I'm so happy I could dance, but too bad I don't know how to."

At this point, the DInamite Dancers robot comes to life and says (voiced by a cast member), "I could teach you how to dance!" The automated program, designed exclusively by the students, kicks in and the robot takes off in a pre-determined series of forwards, backwards and side-to-sides – an impromptu dance tutorial.

"Once she learns how to dance, the other kids see she's a good dancer and she becomes popular," Nicole Rusas said. The happy ending closes with a song involving all of the cast members, who have learned to accept each other. "It was a great play," Rusas said. "It was humorous and full of content," and like the robot's task, a completely autonomous work.

Happy Endings

Kristen Rusas laughed when she was asked if there were a lot of people at the global competition. More than 10,000 students alone attended the contest, not to mention coaches, teachers, parents, judges and spectators. The Bernards teams faced competition from multiple continents, and hundreds of students with impressive answers to Destination ImagiNation's challenges.

The DInamite Dancers competed in what is called an "instant challenge" before the main event – quickly assembling a waterproof shelter for a handful of cotton balls using tools handed out just before the goal is announced.

When the time came to perform their play, the team, already veterans of the global competition, pulled it off without a hitch. In a truly international field, the Bernards students became the first New Jersey team in history to win the first place prize at the Destination ImagiNation Global Competition.

The students who participate in the contest typically begin preparing at the end of September or early October, sacrificing countless after-school hours and weekends learning and strategizing.

"Destination ImagiNation is a wonderful activity that stresses scientific, engineering, creative, and performing arts skills, and really teaches young people to work together as a team," Lisa Winter, mother of Maddie, said.

"The kids really own what they do," Nicole Rusas said. "They brainstorm and think creatively. It's all outside the box thinking, and it's different from anything they would do at school or elsewhere. … It's definitely one of the best activities my kids do."

After three straight years qualifying for globals, two state championships and one global championship, Rusas asked the students, most of whom will turn 12 next year, if they would be up for competing again in the middle school division next year. Their coach reports, "They said absolutely."


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