The Lego Robotics Club in Brielle, New Jersey, is designed to teach students in grades 5th thru 8th to solve a problem. The format is using legos, however, leadership, and team building are the key aspects of this program.  The idea was developed by Dr. Laura Kenneally.  Kenneally says, "this idea came about as a parent of two boys who love legos. Through experiences at Legoland in CA (a fantastic park!) and Space Camp (also a great program) we became interested in the range of activities one can do with legos. I could not find a robotics program in the area so I researched it and built our own program. I thought why not start one here in Brielle? Why not? It seemed like a great idea."
 
Kenneally says she does not have any experience in programming robots.  However, she has been a special educator for over 20 years and is a board certified behavior analyst (education is in psychology, special education, and educational leadership). She is very familiar with Apple products and its software.  The group is using Lego Mindstorms with Apple PowerBooks to program the robots. They will also be using some other software to create team logos, newsletters, and movies.

The group was part of First Lego League for two years and in between did Botball.  This year the group is not part of any league and is limited so that each child can have their own robot and can learn all of the skills involved. Children were selected based upon a first come first serve basis.  Children that attended the previous year were invited first and added two new students this year by having Kenneally's own children pass on having a robot. The program is not part of the local school, but meetings take place there to accommodate the size of the group.

The focus of the program this year was to build robots to help individuals who are blind. The group went to the Monmouth county association for the blind and interviewed the members. They recently held their Science Day 2008 at the school and invited other students who were interested in science to display their posters on any experiment or display. In addition, they had Driven Robotics, a high school team, as judges. They really made an impact on our students, as they understood their projects much more than their parents.

In the past a few organizations contributed a total of $300 towards the program's costs. When they were part of Botball, they received a grant from the National Science Foundation of two robots. However, the group found those robots, which used gameboys, to be very difficult to program. This year the group has been offered a grant from the Brielle Education Foundation to purchase 4 more robots.

For more information about the group, including videos of their work, visit http://web.mac.com/lkenneally/Brielle_Lego_Robotics_Club/Welcome.html