SCHOOL OF ROCK CRAWLING
Anyone involved in the world of radio-controlled vehicles understands the amount of patience, determination, creativity, persistence, perseverance, problem solving, camaraderie—and of course, fun—that is associated with building, driving and repairing them. All of these are valuable lessons and skills can be used throughout life, so why not take advantage and teach them to students in the school setting? What if, by working with a hobby shop, we could use RC crawlers as a vehicle for real-world experiences and hands-on learning to help them gain this knowledge and much more while having fun in school?
THE PLAN
A goal of the New Hampton Community School District is to focus on Project Based Learning (PBL), where complex real-world problems are used as the vehicle to promote student learning of concepts and principles as opposed to direct presentation of facts and concepts. The goal is to create a personalized and rigorous learning experience for middle-school students based on critical thinking, complex communication, collaboration, flexibility, adaptability, creativity, productivity and accountability.
The RC Crawler class focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics (STEAM) to emulate the automotive world by having students build the Axial SCX10 III Jeep Wrangler Rubicon JLU 4WD builder’s kit and create an RC crawler course. Twenty students participated in an intense, two-week, 80-minutes-a-day class where five teams of four were responsible for their own crawler’s outcome.
Within each team, one member focused on a specific area—drivetrain/transmission construction, constructing the frame
