LESSONS IN INNOVATION

Instructor encourages students to put scientific principles to use … one LEGO brick at a time.

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 03/15/06

BY SHANNON MULLEN
STAFF WRITER

In the basement of a 130-year-old school building on the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, Liesl Hotaling is trying to buttress America's sagging reputation as a scientific superpower.

And guess what's she's using: LEGO bricks.

Hotaling, 37, of Highlands, a marine scientist and a specialist in seaport management, is the assistant director of Stevens Institute's Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science. The center's mission is to find new and better ways to teach mathematics and science using technology, principally at the K-12 level.

That's a daunting challenge: For years, U.S. schoolchildren have lagged well behind such countries as Estonia, Latvia and the Netherlands, not to mention much of Asia, in math and science aptitude. Some say the reason is that American kids simply have other priorities.

"In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears … and that is our problem,'' New York Times columnist and best-selling author Thomas Freidman observed in his book about technological globalism, "The World is Flat.''

Could LEGO bricks be part of the solution?

Hotaling thinks so. In a new four-week mini course she's co-teaching with two Stevens colleagues, Rustam Stolkin and Richard Sheryll, teams of freshmen engineering students are using LEGO pieces, cut-up flotation "noodles'' and modeling clay to create something a good deal more ambitious than the LEGO dinosaurs and pirate ships they played with as kids.

By the end of the course, each team has to figure out how to turn those materials into a remotely controlled underwater robotic vehicle.

That explains the kiddie pool sitting among the high-tech laboratory equipment in the basement of Edwin A. Stevens Hall, where the class meets on Friday afternoons.

The mini course, called Engineering Experiences, uses an educational approach known as "discovery-based learning.'' As the name implies, the idea is for students to learn by doing, through trial and error. Hotaling and her colleagues try to remain on the sidelines, guiding the students with questions, rather than spooning out solutions.

As Stolkin, a robotics expert, explained, "You've got to let them do it wrong, and figure out why it went wrong.''

So far, every team to go through the course since last summer has managed to pass the final test. That means getting the vehicle to sink to the bottom of the pool, retrieve a hole-studded plastic ball, deposit the ball in a metal basket and return to the surface. And no two vehicles have been alike.

Hotaling, who hit on the idea of building underwater vehicles with LEGO bricks, said the curriculum she and her two colleagues developed for the course works equally well with high school students.

A former teacher at The Ranney School in Tinton Falls and Red Bank Regional High School in Little Silver, Hotaling thinks the discovery approach is one of the keys to improving science education at the K-12 level, where, she believes, science is too often taught as if it was history, rather than something dynamic.

At Stevens, the mini course provides freshmen who are immersed in theory in their other classes a chance to put the principles they're studying to practical use. The hope is that by engaging their minds this way, in the early stages of their undergraduate studies, Stevens can reduce a high drop out rate among engineering majors, a chronic problem at engineering schools nationwide.

"Not to say LEGO is going to solve the world's engineering ills,'' Hotaling said. "It's just an example of what students can do to hone their creativity.''

There was plenty of honing going on one recent Friday, as students began constructing retractable arms for their vehicles. This was the group's third session; the final test was a week away.

"Don't try to spear the Whiffle ball,'' Hotaling advised while students busily snapped LEGO bricks and gears together. "It's a waste of time. You really have to grab it.''

Samantha Strimpler, 18, of Manasquan, wasn't worried about the grasping task just yet. She and her teammate, Brooke Bizub, 18, of Glen Ridge, who were huddled at a long work table, still had to figure out why their vehicle was sinking too fast and listing to one side.

To address the sinking problem, they sorted through their box of LEGO pieces for some plastic tires and secured a few of them to the vehicle's frame.

"All right,'' Strimpler said, when she was satisfied, "let's put it in the water.''

When they did, the vehicle promptly sunk.

"We need more tires,'' Strimpler proposed, but the extra tires didn't help. After repeated trips to the pool, she and Bizub figured out that some of the tires were filling with water, making the vehicle heavier. By then, class time was running short, as Hotaling would soon point out.

"What we want to see in 20 minutes is a vehicle that goes up and down in the water,'' she announced. "It doesn't have to do anything fancy.''

Strimpler and Bizub kept at it, trading the tires for a "noodle'' wedge secured to the vehicle with a couple of rubber bands. Back at the pool, they looked on quizzically as their submersible continued to flounder.

"Right at this point they're as confused as hell,'' Sheryll, one of the instructors, observed, speaking about the class as a whole. "Once they get the thing in the water, they figure it out. By the last 20 minutes of the last class, they all have vehicles picking up balls and putting them in baskets.''

Strimpler tried to think of a quick fix, just to get the up-and-down task out of the way. They'd have time next week to make the final product look pretty.

"What if we just added clay to the back?'' Strimpler asked.

"Would clay be enough, though?'' Bizub wondered.

They tried the clay and it worked . . . for a few seconds. Then Sheryll, who has spent the past 14 years developing a deep-sea probe capable of collecting pristine samples from the ocean floor, up to 7 miles down, suggested the students position the noodle wedge higher on the vehicle.

That did the trick. And some extra clay corrected the listing problem. By then the class period was over, though most of the students continued working.

"They're so engaged,'' Hotaling said. "We basically have to kick them out.''

Among the students who stayed was Strimpler, who had another, presumably less engaging class next period. A mechanical engineering major, she said the mini course was right up her alley.

"This is fun. I like it … the gears, building everything, seeing how it works, seeing how it moves,'' she said.

Working overtime shows real dedication to the job. But as all professional engineers can attest, there is something to be said for quitting while you're ahead.

Riding the momentum of their noodle breakthrough, Strimpler and Bizub began collaborating with teammates Glenn Shevach, 18, of Hurley, N.Y., and Joe Amorosa, 18, of Somerville, who had paired off to build the retractable arms. Just when the team seemed to have the arms secured to the vehicle and functioning properly, though, there was a loud, splattering crash, after which Bizub pivoted slowly away from the table, gaping in mute disbelief.

Hotaling winced when she heard the crash, but she knows what that noise represents. It's the sound of learning in progress.