Robots Go Green! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Robots Go Green!

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Environment and climate change

Project Summary

We were able to start the project in 2019 as planned, the teachers’ meeting could take place, all stakeholders were visited and the respective responsibilities were determined.
The first meeting in Martinique in February 2020 could also be held. The presentations of the schools at the beginning could be delivered. The international groups of students could plan their ideas for their greenhouses, present their sketches of the greenhouses they had designed via TinkerCad, and they could explain which vegetables should be grown in the respective country and which robots should be built. All the international groups presented themselves to a group of scientists from Martinique, who came together at the end of the week to listen to the students’ presentations and also to give talks about their areas of expertise.
After the meeting, however, came the Corona pandemic and school closures. Martinique was particularly affected by these measures. The French school remained closed for more than half a year, partly because of the pandemic, but also because of a teachers’ strike.
Due to this situation, we decided to extend our project by half a year. In October 2020, we organised a three-day robotics seminar at the Augusta Bender School with the support of Dr. Schnirch and his students from the PH Heidelberg – a teacher training college. During these three days, 46 11th grade students from our vocational high school learned about the Arduino computer programme for programming robots on the one hand and the Raspberry Pi computer on the other. With the respective computers, our students built robots for greenhouses with sensors for C02 and O2 content of the air, air and soil humidity, temperature measurements and more. Films and pictures on the TwinSpace give impressions of the results of the workshop: (https://twinspace.etwinning.net/93759/pages/page/1264262 https://twinspace.etwinning.net/93759/pages/page/1263796). In Spain, students built robots, programmed them to work in a greenhouse and also built the greenhouse for it (https://twinspace.etwinning.net/93759/pages/page/1654563). In Martinique, a robot was constructed as well (https://twinspace.etwinning.net/93759/pages/page/1674386), although it was particularly difficult to carry out the planned activities there due to the strikes and the pandemic in Martinique.
Because of the pandemic, we had to plan the meeting in Spain online in May 2021. Since we did not know whether we would be able to meet in October 2021, we brought forward the activity “Science Slams” from the third to the second project meeting.
Carolin Nistler organised the science slam workshop with the professional help of lecturer Max Wetterauer from the PH Heidelberg. Four international student groups were formed. Before the online project meeting, the groups met twice online with Ms Nistler and Mr Wetterauer. It was explained how a Science Slam is constructed, the students’ work was supervised and their texts were reviewed. This workshop was very enriching for all students and they learned a lot about creative writing and how to explain a scientific topic in an exciting way.
In the second project meeting, which now had to take place online, the international student groups were able to complete their science slams. At the online meeting, two workshops on quizzes and the environment were organised by the Spanish school and a workshop on robotics and the computer programme TinkerCad was organised by the French school. The problem here, however, was the technical equipment. The internet connection in Martinique was only possible in one room and only temporarily. Not all internet connections in Spain were working either. Nevertheless, the students were able to complete their tasks and present the results on the third day.
Between the second and third project meeting, we collected our results and uploaded them to the TwinSpace. Newspaper articles were also written and we were proud of ourselves for having held a meeting despite the pandemic.
Before the third meeting in Germany, all students were able to provide robots to bring to Germany. In Germany, six international groups could be formed: four groups created videos for each of the four science slam texts, one workshop dealt with the topic of nutrition and environment in the three different countries, and one workshop programmed an app for driving a robot in a greenhouse. We were able to successfully conduct all workshops in presence with a total of 46 pupils and seven teachers and present our results at the PH in Heidelberg in a lecture hall in front of teacher trainees. During our project week, we also participated in the Code Week Baden-Württemberg and uploaded our activities there in a blog.

Project Website

https://robotsgogreen.wixsite.com/home

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 88846,5 Eur

Project Coordinator

Augusta-Bender-Schule & Country: DE

Project Partners

• LYCEE JOSEPH ZOBEL
• IES DISTRICTE MARÍTIM