BUZZ Worthy Learning

Take a sneak peak into some of the amazing classes & learning opportunities available to our CUSD students thanks to generous donations to Coronado Schools Foundation!

VILLAGE ELEMENTARY

INNOVATION LAB

This school year has seen lots of creativity and ingenuity in the Innovation Lab, also known as iLab! This class, made possible by CSF, is a weekly hands-on enrichment STEM-Lab for all students across grades K-5 and led by teacher, Ms. Toni Trinidad.

Students in Kindergarten and 1st grade started the year with an introduction to coding, learning block coding language that they used to code sequencing puzzles and practice turning algorithms into programs. Students were able to practice alone and in small groups to collaborate on best solutions and to debug problematic coding issues!

Next they will embark on an intro to structure and function as they explore engineering to design and build structures that will function to solve specific problems for some of the most beloved Fairy Tale characters: Jack and the Beanstalk and The Three Little Pigs.

Students in 2nd and 3rd grade built their knowledge of properties of matter, like color and texture, as well as understanding states of matter like solid, liquid, and gas. Classes engaged in activities like matter rubbings and discovering materials that act as conductors or insulators through experiments.

With this new-found knowledge, students built a cooler out of recycled materials. Their challenge: keep an ice pop from melting under direct heat using only insulators. Designs, materials, and solutions created varied from team to team, but all students experienced great success by reducing the melt by 50-98%! Next up is studying the science of flight, where they will culminate their learning by designing and building their own glider!

Our 4th and 5th grade students have been using our VEX IQ kits to learn about and build several simple machines. After several directed builds with their iPads, students moved into using the engineering design process to merge two or more simple machines into one compound machine that can meet a need or solve a human problem. Students really showed off their creativity and ingenuity with these projects!

Some creative machines invented included a movable pulley system to pass snacks between bunk bed levels, and an indoor cat play structure so they never get bored! Students will continue their learning with the use of magnets; and culminate the unit by designing a compound machine that employs several simple machines and magnets to save a zoo animal that has fallen into a deep moat.

Their creations will be built as small models that could be scalable in real life. After that it’s exploring advanced coding robotics with their VEX kits!

The Innovation Lab is a place where all students participate in hands-on learning in order to solve real world problems within a team. Not only are students learning Next Generation Science Standards, but they are practicing teamwork, collaboration, and problem solving. Perhaps the most important experience, however, is the opportunity to catch the spark and excitement of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.) Through the support of CSF, the Village Innovation Lab is students’ first experience within the K-12 STEM Pathways offered at CUSD.

CORONADO HIGH SCHOOL
FTC ROBTICS

New to CHS this year is FTC Robotics! FIRST Tech Challenge allows students to learn and practice real life job pathways that can be achieved through the FIRST robotics programs. These include engineering, computer science, web development, graphic design, additive manufacturing, public relations, entrepreneurship, and marketing. Team members use STEM skills to design, build, and code robots to compete in an alliance against other teams.

This is their first season and the team has built from scratch their competition robot "Peter," named after Nado Bots' head coding and engineering coach NASA engineer Pete Waydo. Their team has grown to the maximum 15 team members and they are excited to expand their program next year to include another competition team as well as another robot!

“The team dedicates many hours in the robotics lab, which has allowed us to be a standout rookie team,” said Robotics Coordinator & Head Coach Roberta Lenert, M. Ed. “I’m so impressed with their passion & drive. We have members juggling APs, sports, NJROTC, COSA, work, and. more but they still find time to collectively dedicate hundreds of hours towards becoming the very best robotics team they can be."

At their first competition in November, CHS Nado Bots had a strong showing placing 5th in their league. The team created a robust robot with a high-tech strafer chassis that allowed their robot to strafe during Teleop (the 2-minute driver-controlled period of the competition where the team drivers get to control the robot).

At their second competition, they improved their robot by adding new 3D printed parts, including a pixel collection mechanism, end caps to protect the chassis, a servo to drop pixels, and a detailed 30-second Autonomous Period, in which Robot operates using only pre-programmed instructions that the team had coded. CHS Nado Bots held onto 1st place for most of the competition due to the success of their autonomous code and accuracy of their robot runs.

For their 3rd competition, they improved the robot by creating a moving arm that allows the robot to pick up & manipulate pixels, completed with specially designed and improved 3D printed parts including a gripper, spinning intake device components, gears, wheel guards and a control hub case. They've also attached three new motors and a REV expansion hub that has allowed the team to add a second game controller and detailed code.

“Getting to participate has been an eyeopening experience,” said team member Alaina Stachowicz. “My favorite part is definitely driving the robot and the connections I have made with likeminded women in STEM!”

Nado Bots are so grateful for all of their amazing sponsors who have allowed them to create a new competition playing field, state-of-the-art Robotics Lab, 3D Printing Lab and a coming soon Engineering Lab!