By Heather Johnson-MPCC
A new type of storm is sweeping across West Central and Southwest Nebraska – leaving a hunger for science and technology in its wake.
Ever since LEGO MINDSTORMS arrived at the Mid-Plains Community College Ogallala Campus, the area response has been an insatiable desire for more.
“It has really taken off,” Mary Pierce, MPCC Ogallala Campus administrator, said of the programming. “We never could have predicted it would become this popular.”
In essence, LEGO MINDSTORMS is a hands-on, cross-curricular form of STEM education that engages students by encouraging them to design, build and program robots. The robots are then disassembled and used for additional classes.
The MPCC Ogallala Campus initially purchased eight LEGO MINDSTORMS kits after receiving a $3,600 grant from the Keith County Foundation Fund in the fall of 2017.
The kits were taken on the road with the first class being taught in Arthur in the spring of 2018 by University of Nebraska-Lincoln 4-H Extension Educator Mike Eskelson.
“We’ve had a session every fall, spring and summer since, and our classes are typically full,” said Pierce. “Kids love the technology. It has been a great way to encourage them to come to campus and become familiar with us. We offer the classes to children 10 and older and have even had a child and parent workshop, which was a fun way for families to spend time together. The entire program has been really successful.”
So successful, in fact, that by 2019 it was time to expand. A second grant for $2,500 was applied for and received from the Keith County Foundation Fund, allowing the Ogallala Campus to purchase additional kits and accessories.
The grant also paid for a “Train the Trainer” workshop to help others become LEGO MINDSTORMS instructors.
“It’s really hard to find instructors trained in the technology in the area,” Pierce said. “Two of the individuals who went through our workshop are now teaching LEGO MINDSTORMS classes for MPCC in McCook and Imperial.”
The MPCC Imperial Campus borrows the kits, which now total 12, from the campus in Ogallala. The target group in Imperial is students ages 8-10.
“They have a lot of fun,” said Brenda Ledall, MPCC Imperial Campus administrator. “In addition to assembling the robots, the students are learning to code them with a program on the laptop. It’s great for career exploration. The same technical skills are needed in fields such as computer programming, engineering and even automotive and diesel technology.”
She noted that several life skills are also gained through LEGO MINDSTORMS. Those include the ability to read and follow directions, creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.
Like Ogallala, Imperial’s classes fill up fast. They are currently offered in the fall and spring - whenever kits are available. Up until recently, the kits also had to be shared with MPCC’s campus in McCook.
“We were fortunate to be able to purchase 10 of our own kits in May,” said Sharon Kircher, MPCC business and community educator. “We’re thankful to the McCook Community Foundation Fund, which provided partial assistance in the form of a grant.”
The Business and Community Education department hosts classes for children throughout the year, and an extension of that is the LEGO MINDSTORMS courses.
By having its own kits, BCE can now offer additional robotics classes whenever it wants to – not just when the kits aren’t being used somewhere else. That flexibility is important – especially because LEGO MINDSTORMS classes in McCook are often in the double digits.
“We had anywhere from 15-21 students per session before COVID-19 hit,” Kircher said. “We had to double students up and sometimes even divide them into groups of three.”
The McCook classes are geared toward fourth through eighth grade students. This year, there will be a new offering in the form of a space station kit, which requires students to apply problem solving skills to address real space exploration challenges.
More information about LEGO MINDSTORMS classes in McCook is available by calling (308) 345-8123. In Imperial, the number is (308) 882-5972, and in Ogallala, it’s (308) 284-9830.