STEAM FEST 2023

The ABC hosted the annual STEAM Fest Celebration on March 10th this year, in person and across the school. The event which was a huge success took place across the primary and secondary with primary grades up to and including 4th grade in the performing arts centre and the 5th grade together with secondary in the  Auditorium. 

Each year students from across the school get together to present a variety of exciting ross disciplinary STEAM(  Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) projects. This was extra special as it is the first year since the pandemic that our school has been able to invite guests from schools and organizations in the community. We were thrilled to have them join us and participate in the event. 

This year, we held our first hackathon during STEAM Fest, in which students from the ABC and Maquilushuat students schools worked on teams to solve a local parking and school drop-off challenge. 

In doing so they use a variety of digital and analog resources.

The hackathon was a huge success.

At the end of a rather intense day two very different solutions emerged and were presented. Here is a short video of Hackathon 2023 highlights. 
 

Hackathon 2023 

 The community was able to watch segments of  STEAM  Fest throughout the day via the live stream which took place in the Auditorium. This enabled parents to tune in and watch the students showcase their creations and share their ideas. It was inspiring to see the fruition of so much creativity, teamwork, critical thinking and innovation on display.

 The STEAM Fest top project results were announced last week, and the results are as follows. 

The tribal star competition also rendered some exciting results. 

Here is a short video from the event as well as the link to our Flickr album.

STEAM FEST 2023 

This year's STEAM Fest Celebration was a huge success, and we were thrilled to have so many guests from the community. It was a great opportunity for students to showcase their skills and talents and collaborate with other students from different schools. We cannot wait until next year's event and hope to continue to inspire and support our students in their STEAM pursuits.

Creative Destruction Summit

A few weeks ago an ex-student of ours, who is currently studying in Canada at the University of Toronto, contacted us about a wonderful, international, collaborative opportunity for our students, the Creative Destruction Summit. The summit which was held on March 7th is a "virtual international symposium of emerging technology for all high school students who are interested in STEM and entrepreneurship".

The majority of our 11th and 12th grade Computer Science, ITGS and Digital Society Students attended the two 1 hour sessions. After the initial session in which young entrepreneurs in the area of technology held a panel discussion, the students were sent to break out rooms in Zoom to discuss artificial intelligence and space with the other participants from around the world. 

Our ABC ROCS did a wonderful job of contributing their thoughts and questions during both sessions. Once the summit ended, they participated in discussions with their groups and in doing so did a great job of making further meaning and summing up their findings. 

These opportunities for international collaborative learning becoming a lot more common than they used to be. Many are brought to our attention by our very own exhibits who study locally and abroad and work across different sectors. This brings even further relevance to such opportunities as they provide further insight into a  wider academic world awaiting them enabling them to explore many possibilities which they may not have considered had they not been presented with these innovative learning opportunities.

We would like to thank all of the students who participated as well as the organisers who made this possible at UofT. A special thank you goes out to our two student Ambassadors, Giuliana Falconio and Natalia Rivas, both 11th-grade students, who were in charge of representing us and running communications in both Zoom and Slack. 

Wendys El Salvador- Visit with a Customer Service Robot

Every year in ITGS the 12th-grade HL students are presented with a case study that they need to explore, research and prepare responses to. This year they are focused on a case study that involved smart shelves, VR mirrors and customer service robots. One of the requirements of this work is that students engage in primary research. Robots are also a focus area of the SL curriculum. 

Wendys El Salvador and Zacamil Hospital in El Salvador both use customer service robots for slightly different purposes so it made good sense to contact one of them to explore further. What better opportunity than to interact with the robots, observe them in action, interview the people who make use of them and oversee their operation and also explore their impacts on customers through interviews and direct interaction with the robots.  We contacted Wendys a few weeks back and set up an appointment to visit. 

Today was the day!  Students had already collaborated on two pages of powerful questions in ITGS Class, in preparation for the visit and spent a good portion of the visit interviewing the restaurant manager as well as testing out the robot, putting it through its paces while exploring its interfaces, hardware and the sensors it uses to help it navigate. They even had the opportunity to interview a few customers and adopt the role of customers.

This was a fantastic experience full of relevant explorations and discussions which will not only help the students to better understand the impacts of customer service robots on society but also aid them in preparing for the analytical writing they will engage in throughout the remainder of their IB journey. 

Here is the link to the photo gallery from the trip. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed taking part in it. 

Maker Market 2022

 This week Maker Market returned to the Secondary school after a 2-year Covid-19 induced hiatus. 

This was a scaled-down version of the prior Maker Market events.  That said, there were product contributions at stalls run by the 10th grade, 6th grade, the Maker Space Club, Sewing Club, and Mr. Martinez. 

A great many students and staff were involved in the planning and preparation of Maker Market 2022 which took place during both breaks on December 14th.  This event is one of the many opportunities for our students to engage in entrepreneurship through learning and in doing so find ways to engage in service learning. All profits from Maker Market sales are bound for the various grade-level charities where they are sure to make a positive difference. 

The event was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Here is a short video as well as the link to our Flickr Album so you too can enjoy this wonderful event from home. 

MAKER MARKET 2022 by the LRC

Diplomado en Servicios Innovadores para Bibliotecas

Written by the LRC Team

Spanish 

(Scroll down for the English version.)

El equipo de trabajo del LRC desarrolló e impartió un diplomado de 5 semanas, en coordinación con el Ministerio de Cultura, denominado "Servicios Innovadores para Bibliotecas". El objetivo de éste diplomado  fue dar a conocer y manejar herramientas tecnologicas que le permitan al bibliotecario o educador buscar medios eficaces para realizar su labor, que pueden ser utilizados a través de estrategias análogas y digitales. Como resultado, los profesionales locales tuvieron la oportunidad de explorar una variedad de herramientas fundamentadas en las mejores prácticas pedagógicas e implementadas utilizando experiencias cuidadosamente planificadas, que empoderan al bibliotecario o educador a mejorar el impacto de las experiencias de aprendizaje positivo en su labor diaria con las comunidades.

Este fue un primer paso en abordar con profesionales de todas partes del país, conceptos y temáticas novedosas en dichas áreas, de una manera holística y creativa, suscitando en la persona un interés renovado en el conocimiento de técnicas o tecnologías que a su vez den sentido a su implementación en bibliotecas de todo tipo, con costos relativamente bajos.

El diplomado fue impartido a bibliotecarios, estudiantes y personas interesadas provenientes de distintos ámbitos, como centros educativos, culturales o de investigación, ya sean éstos públicos o privados.

Estos son algunos de los temas impartidos:

• El rol de las emociones en el aprendizaje
• Interacción virtual: cómo hacerla y herramientas necesarias
• Qué es el pensamiento creativo
• Estrategias y metodologías para facilitar el pensamiento creativo, en el contexto de la biblioteca
• Herramientas digitales para desarrollar y aprovechar el pensamiento creativo
• Estrategias de fomento a la lectura apoyadas por tecnología
• Creando proyectos y actividades utilizando la metodología STEAM
• Redes de apoyo para el fomento de la lectura (clubes de lectura, arte, música, robótica, etc.
• Automatización en bibliotecas
• Plataformas en la nube como soporte a la labor del personal de biblioteca
• Los centros de recursos para el aprendizaje,
• Inteligencia artificial,  
• Realidad Virtual (RV), Realidad aumentada (RA) y Realidad mixta (RM). 

La sesión final se realizó en persona en el LRC. Esta experiencia dió la oportunidad a todos los participantes de practicar lo aprendido durante el curso y les permitió realizar las conexiones importantes entre la teoría y las tecnologías exploradas en el curso en línea, con experiencias temáticas de aprendizaje práctico.

Exploracion con:

• Robotica
• Programacion
• RV/RA/RM
• Diseño
• Desarollo y uso Juegos, entre otros.
  Diplomado Servicios innovadores para bibliotecas by the LRC

Los asistentes se mostraron muy satisfechos con la tematica y la metodología, demostrando su motivación a replicar lo aprendido en sus áreas de trabajo. 

Fotos en Flicker

English

The LRC team recently developed and taught a 5-week online diploma program in coordination with the Salvadoran Ministry of Culture, entitled Innovative Services for Libraries. The objective of this diploma program was to update and teach local librarians and educational professionals about current pedagogical practices, which can be employed through analog and digital strategies. In doing so local professionals were provided opportunities to explore a variety of tools cemented in best pedagogical practices, and implemented through carefully planned experiences, empowering the librarian or educator to extend and increase the positive learning impacts of their daily work within communities. 

This was the first step in working with professionals around the country to explore novel concepts and themes in said areas, through a holistic and creative approach, aimed at sparking a renewed interest in the knowledge and application of techniques and technologies for implementation in libraries of all kinds, at a relatively low cost.

The diploma was undertaken by librarians, students, and interested people from different fields, such as educational, cultural, or research centers, both public and private.

These experiences focused on the following topics:

• The role of emotions in learning
• Virtual interaction: how to and tools
• Creative thinking
• Strategies and methodologies to facilitate creative thinking, in the context of the library
• Digital tools to develop and harness creative thinking
• Technology strategies to promote reading
• Creating projects and activities through STEAM 
• Support networks for the promotion of reading (reading clubs, art, music, robotics, etc.)
• Automation in libraries
• Cloud platforms for library staff
• The learning resource centres
• Artificial intelligence  
• Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (XR)

Diplomado Servicios innovadores para bibliotecas by the LRC

The final session was carried out in person in the LRC. This experience provided everyone the opportunity to practice what they learned during the course and allowed attendees to make important connections between the theory and technologies explored in the online course with practical thematic learning experiences.

In-Person Exploration:

• robotics
• programming
• VR/RA/RM
• design
• and Gamification.. among others.

The attendees were highly motivated by the theme and the methodology, which was demonstrated by the creative manner in which they applied their learning across these areas. 

Photos on Flicker

WRO International Finals 2022

Dortmund, Germany,

17 - 19 Nov 2022

The international final of the World Robot Olympiad summoned children and young people between the ages of 8 and 19 in Dortmund, Germany, from November 17 to 19, with the theme “My robot, my friend”.

It has been 3 arduous days in which the participants of the different categories and age ranges worked fine-tuning their robots, either to compete in the challenges or to prepare for the evaluations of the judges and to show the audience their proposals.

This year, the international final had the participation of 365 teams from 73 countries, each one made up of 2 or 3 participants, for a total of more than a thousand competitors, not counting their coaches, national representatives and special guests.

The ambient

The International Final was held in an authentic party atmosphere. Before the opening ceremony on the first day, the participants made a surprise visit to the Signal Iduna Stadium, home of Borussia Dortmund, which then continued at the Messe Dortmund facilities, the city's convention and fair center. After the opening ceremony, the flags of all the participating countries were presented and the competition began.


For the second day, the organizing team prepared a Friendship Night, with the theme of a Christmas Market, a very German tradition during this time of the year in Germany. The kids took the opportunity to enjoy the activities and games prepared for them, strengthening their friendship with the other delegations.


On the third day, the last scored tests for all categories and teams took place, to later lead to the closing event and the award ceremony.

Regarding the Award Ceremony, Elena Atanacio, from the ABC Bulldogs team and recipient, together with Jeannette Mejía, of the award for the best technical solution, shared the following with us:

“When I saw all the projects participating, I got a little worried and amazed. I couldn't even imagine how advanced some projects would be. Then, the 1st round of judges came and they were really "judgy" but I got the hang of it and got better with time at explaining to them my robot.

The last round of judges were really nice. We talked to people from a lot of different places from around the world.It was all a great adventure and a really great experience. I got to meet kids from all around the world.Then, it all came to an end, and we started to take down our stand and put our robot away to get ready to go home. We went to the auditorium where the award ceremony was going to take place and my category was the first. They turned in 8 awards and we were not in that list. Even Though I did not get a prize I was satisfied by our participation and about all of the things I saw and learned with this experience.Bit then, they were more special and more specific awards coming. And suddenly, i heard them say "mr. Bin" And I was like "whattt?!?!?! Is that us???" I couldn't believe it. They started talking about the technical solution award and that it was being granted to a team that had a "simple and yet efficient" solutionAnd we started walking towards the stage and we received an award. I was suuuper excited and couldn't believe it.”

Challenges and results

The challenges were divided for the first time into 4 categories, two related to solutions based on LEGO pieces and 2 new free categories, which allow the incorporation of other technological solutions.

Each category has 3 age groups: Elementary (8 - 12 years), Junior (11 - 15 years) and Senior (14 - 19 years).

The "Robo" categories compete with LEGO elements and parts and the "Future" categories with any element selected or manufactured by the competitors.

El Salvador participated with 3 teams: Robomission Elementary (Hikerbots, made up of Santiago Moreno and Diego Valencia), Robomission Senior (ABC Robotics club, made up of José Andrés Miguel, Marcos Narváez and Arturo Sánchez) and Future Innovators Junior (ABC Bulldogs, made up of Jeannette Mejía and Elena Atanacio).

The categories present at the event were:

Future innovators: Teams were tasked with building a model that represents the robot as a friend and helper in one of these topics: Robots at home, robots in rescue, and robots in healthcare. Various technical and presentation aspects of the solutions were evaluated, with the following teams being the winners:

Elementary: 1st place 2030 - KSA from Saudi Arabia, 2nd place THE REHAB TRIO from Malaysia, 3rd place Fantasy from Chinese Taipei.
Junior: 1st place Otemon Quest from Japan, 2nd place HK-UCCKE from Hong Kong, 3rd place DYCI Primes from the Philippines.

Senior: 1st place Robolectro Kinesist from India, 2nd place Robocores from Greece, 3rd place Platon Tech from Azerbaijan.

Special prizes were also awarded to those teams that demonstrated truly outstanding characteristics

and abilities in the following sections:

• LEGO Education Creativity Award - Katatronic Wildcats - Mexico
• Best Team Spirit (Elementary) - Triple Tech - South Africa
• Best Technical Solution (Junior) - ABC Bulldogs - El Salvador
• Best Team (All Ages) - AGSG - Portugal

Future engineers: The autonomous car challenge this time was a race against the clock with no other competitors on the track at the same time. Instead, each autonomous vehicle tried to set the fastest time around a circuit, complete with road signs and lanes that the vehicle must use.

Overall winners were: 1st place Firing on all cylinders from Chinese Taipei, 2nd place Team Spark from USA, and 3rd place Team Lazy-go from Bangladesh

Robomission: The traditional challenges of the past years, each team builds and programs a robot that accomplishes missions on a challenge board in which the robots must perform certain specific tasks, in a defined period of time and scoring points per task accomplished. The robots are completely autonomous and are not allowed to be controlled remotely. On this occasion, each age range has a different challenge: Elementary: the garden robot; Junior: the rescue robot; Senior: The care robot.

Elementary: 1st place Curious Robot from Chinese Taipei, 2nd place AREA5 from Hungary, 3rd place TC TEAM 1 from Malaysia.

Junior: 1st place Greenbots from India, 2nd place RoboTecnia Danonino from Mexico, 3rd place Robotic Boys from Germany.

Senior: 1st place ThaiHerbGood from Thailand, 2nd place RoboPark from Kazakhstan, 3rd place NERDVANA MENSA from Romania.

Robosports: Teams design two robots that compete against other teams' head-to-heads in a tag team tennis match. The winning team is the one that places the most balls in the opponent's field, following a knockout format until the winning team is obtained.
The overall winners were: 1st place PanyaRobot from Thailand, 2nd place UP UP CHM 10 from Malaysia and 3rd place CHAN-PON from Japan.

All categories have shown an extraordinary competitive and technological level, demonstrating not only effective, innovative and technically viable proposals, but also aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), within a specific budget.

Digital Society and Drones

 In the 11th grade Digital Society class, the students have been exploring the future of work through an extended inquiry project.

One of the technologies that arose from research,  which became a focus of discussion when presenting ideas, was that of drone technologies as interventions and how the use of drones might become more common as the future of work evolves. 

Through inquiry, the students explored how drones can be used for transport and delivery across multiple contexts, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of using drones for these jobs. Some of the contexts they looked at were employment and training, governments and policies as well as potential environmental impacts. 

At the end of one lesson students got to experience drone piloting firsthand with our LRC Mini drones. We have some great pilots in the class!

During another lesson, Mr. Alfaro brought out the new LRC/ICT drone and we flew it up to the top of the LRC to explore the school weather station. 

Below is the link to a short video from the second experience with our new DJI Mini 2. 

Digital Society/Drone Video

 by Hilda Gomez