Question Sheet: Dancing with Robots

By Science News Explores

SCIENCE

Before reading:

  1. Based on its title, what do you think this article might be about? 

  2. How would you go about starting to build a robot?

During reading:

  1. Why was Monica Furman worried about her team’s robot? What happened to it? 

  2. What is RoboCup Junior? 

  3. What sorts of difficulties and challenges do robot designers face? 

  4. Describe the rules of robot soccer. See agents.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/dev/rcj/rcjsoccer.php?itemid=68(Brooklyn College). 

  5. Why was the robot dance category one in which students could be especially

    creative? 

  6. What did Adrienne Klein mean when she said, “. . . risk-taking is what we

    really wanted to reward here”?

After reading:

  1. In robot soccer, why would it probably be easier to build a goalie robot

    than it would be to build a striker robot? 

  2. Consider two different ways that a robot might “strike” a ball. What would

    be the problems and advantages of each striking mechanism? 

  3. Why would lots of students use or begin with a Lego-based robot kit? Do you

    think that you would use such a kit to build a robot? Why or why not? See mindstorms.lego.com/(Lego). 

  4. What kind of professions might a kid who is interested in robots pursue? See

    www.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/0008.Kak.robot.html(Purdue University). 

  5. If the organizers of RoboCup Junior were to add a fourth event for robots,

    what do you think it should be? Describe what the competition would involve.

SOCIAL STUDIES

RoboCup 2006 is being held in June in Bremen, Germany. See www.robocup2006.org/ (RoboCup 2006). Where in Germany is the city of Bremen? How would you get there from where you live? Where was RoboCup 2005 held? See www.robocup2005.org/home/default.aspx (RoboCup 2005) How many countries and teams participated in RoboCup 2005? See www.robocup2005.org/pdf/PressRelease20050621.pdf (RoboCup 2005).

LANGUAGE ARTS

  1. Design a poster advertising one of the three RoboCup Junior events. 

  2. Why do journalists often write about contests and competitions? What does

    the reader learn from such articles? What is the most important information that

    an article about a contest should include?

MATHEMATICS

Alex has $9.70 in nickels, dimes, and quarters. The number of nickels is 4 more than 3 times the number of dimes, and the number of quarters is 5 fewer than 2 times the number of nickels. How many nickels does Alex have?