Meeting Reports -
SOCRATESE - COMENIUS 3.1
Create
A
robotic sculpture remotely controlled through the Internetwww.btinternet.com/~graeme.sagar/create.htm
Report on the meeting between Woodbridge School, Gymnasium Sulingen, and Brody Imre Gimnaziumes, on the 28th Sept to 3rd Oct 1999.During five timetabled meetings a comprehensive agenda was thoroughly discussed resulting in very pleasing progress and general agreement as to the feasibility and value of this project. All was conducted in a very enthusiastic atmosphere, and colleagues from the two new partner schools, Gymnasium Sulingen, and Brody Imre Gimnaziumes, joined with Woodbridge in analysing a variety of problems within the Design, Technology, and Practical areas. Teachers in member schools had already accessed information on the Create web site and had produced sketches and drawings of ideas and conclusions. These were well received at the meetings.
Meeting one centred on welcoming each other to the venue with some description of the resources and capability within their schools. A description and demonstration of the project concept followed this.
Meeting two was an automatic extension with discussions centring on the 'design process', and possible procedure through the phases of development - funding permitting.
Meeting three focussed on the communication elements and developed into an in-depth consideration of the potential of using programmes to drive the sculpture, thus allowing much greater flexibility.
Meeting four included dialogue with teachers from other subjects where the project idea was further reinforced and enthusiasm increased.
Meeting five focussed on action points and subsequent stages of development, together with a target date for the first combined meeting of the five schools.
Discussion also centred on pupil participation and it was realised that there are many areas where students can apply their own experience, and learning, to help the teachers in the early stages of the development process. There are many opportunities afforded to both the curriculum, and children, in the participating schools. Other teachers at Woodbridge, representing Art and ICT, joined in discussions.
Responding to concerns regarding the control through the Internet, Brody Imre Gimnaziumes suggested that, rather than direct control, we should consider writing programmes and downloading these to a control chip on each unit, which would then activate the sculpture. This would then constitute a first level of development in this area, with direct control being developed as a second level. Two bonus elements to the project have thus materialised - pupils' involvement in actual programming tasks, and multiple movements within the sculpture becoming a reality.
It is appreciated that numerous logistical and technical problems have yet to be overcome, but there are many opportunities where the power and flexibility of communication via the Internet can be used to good advantage when engaged in general discussion.
The meetings resulted in the following aims and action points -
We should all investigate Internet communication programmes that could offereffective means for group discussion in real time.
Gymnasium Sulingen offered to investigate Data Transfer for controlling the structure,
offered the use of their Linux server in Germany for block e-mailing, andagreed to investigate a design for the Web Site with students.
There should be an aim towards having a basic model constructed by Easter 2000,
which could effectively demonstrate switching + movement + examples of artwork.
The next full meeting be held towards the end of May, 2000 - funding permitting.
Each school should consider a presentation to the other staff and students in the
school to explain the main purposes of this and other ventures under this heading.
All communications should be relayed to all partner schools
The whole programme ended on a very positive note with a clear intention to make this idea work. All are very enthusiastic to further this project towards enhancing the learning experiences of pupils in the respective schools, and increase friendly co-operation across our Europe.
Graeme Sagar 2nd Oct 1999
'Create' - Visit to Suligen
Short Overview
Following a very successful SMART project (Schools Measuring Acid Rain Trans-Europe), which was led by Ian Carter and in which I was invited to become involved, towards the end of the project I suggested that we consider a Design & Technology project. The other schools - Saanilaakson, Rotterdamsch Lyceum, La-Bisbal, - accepted this as a good idea, and subsequently my proposal, dated 1997 and which can be viewed on the Woodbridge 'Create' website (
www.graeme.sagar.btinternet.co.uk/create/create.htm) , was accepted. Since then, the Spanish school has had to leave the project owing to lack of facilities, although they requested to be kept informed of progress, and we have lost touch with the Dutch school, although they have been granted finances for the project. Ian Carter made contact with Suligen and Brodie Imri who subsequently were keen to pursue this project with us. The latter two schools have moved forward very quickly and are very keen.The projects are funded by the Central Bureau of The British Council which has an overall aim to 'raise standards through International experience'. They attach peculiar titles to their various projects that involve all levels of education. 'Socrates' is the name given to the range of EU schemes aimed at universities and schools. 'Comenius' is a sub section of Socrates and involves groups of schools as ours. Consequently we are involved in Comenius Action 1! Thus the title Comenius Create.
'Create' stands for - Communicating through Robotic Enterprise in Art and Technology across Europe.
From the meeting we need to -
Following this meeting -
1 We need to put together a progress report for the Central Bureau. This is a job, which could be done together at a meeting session as all member schools have to do it, and a unified document could well be useful to all. (This is what happened on the Smart project).
Notes -
Graeme Sagar
26 Nov 2000
Minutes of the CREATE – meeting in Sulingen:
Thursday, November 30
8.00 welcome of teachers from Ajka and Woodbridge by Dr. Dr. Wolfgang Griese at the headmaster´s office, presentation and explanation of the statue "Europa and the 9 muses" outside of the school; guided tour of the school.
10.00 presentation of Sulingen´s CREATE – project: "the 5 tubes" presentation of Ajka´s model: movements and rotating globe.
12.30 arrival of teachers from Espoo, short welcome at headmaster´s office.
13.00 working lunch at restaurant in Sulingen, talk about school education in participating countries.
15.00 at school again: recall of previous presentations Jori and Peter introduce their CREATE - Sculpture "Fortuna" (pinball game). Verification of overall aims, discussion whether decision upon one common sculpture / kinetic object or individual ones, ´contract´ in Ajka to agree on one sculpture?
17.00 everybody leaves, enquiry of Graeme Sagar and Eva Nagy in the evening to settle the dispute.
Friday December 1
8.00 Agreement on individual sculptures / kinetic objects, but common batch programme to control other objects. Until 10.30 technical/electronic devices /equipment for batch programme and controlling, experiments, schematic layout Autorouter; Arrangements for Jukka and Silvia to participate in classes.
12.00 Summary of results and future tasks concerning the project:
- common web site (Mark)
- mailing list (Eckhard)
- permanent exchange of any developments at each school
- increasing involvement of students
- invitation from Silvia and Tibor for the next meeting in Ajka, fixing of dates for March 1st and 2nd 2001
Jukka, Peter and Jori give brochures, yearbook and other presents to all participants.
After lunch: tour of the school for Finnish and Hungarian guests, experiment in science room
15.30 "Kaffee und Kuchen" at Hannelore´s, talk about experiences in morning lessons, teaching foreign languages in different schools, video of Finnish Art in History, video "Gymnasium Sulingen, ein Portrait" (students´ production) evening: with hosts
Saturday, December 2
Visit of Bremen, some sightseeing (The "Schnoor" etc.), some shopping (optional)
In the afternoon: (project-related) visit of the newly-opened Science Museum at the University of Bremen (EXPO-project) In Sulingen: dinner.
Sunday December 3
trip to Celle, final assessment of the meeting:
Hannelore: - motivation for the project - getting to know each other better (personal contact) - aim to give some insight into German culture and customs hopefully achieved
Jukka: positive: hospitality. Criticism: - no meeting with German principal - no involvement of other staff members - cultural programme unsatisfactory (no concerts, art exhibition etc.).
Objection: (Hannelore and Eckhard): - due to rural environment of Gym-Sul choice of cultural programme is limited - fixing of dates for meeting too late (not their fault), no time for further arrangements, announcement of number of visitors and date of arrival only few days ahead. General agreement: Hannelore and Eckhard tried to do their best, improvements are possible.
CREATE Meeting at Bródy Imre Gimnázium, Hungary
Thursday, 1st March 2001Present
Tibor Kaszta/ Éva Nagy/ Karoly Burján/ Tibor Csabai/ Peter Hidvegi/ Jouni Kupiainen/ Jori Haapanen/ Eckhard Hellmich/ Hannelore Dietze/ Graeme Sagar/ Andrew Garfath-Cox
Presentations
A presentation of the work done for the project was given by both the Bródy Imre and Sulingen schools. Both these had made major technical advances in controlling an LED board from a remote computer on the Internet.
Congratulations were given to both countries on the excellence of the progress made since their discussion at the last meeting in Sulingen.
It was agreed that an umbrella website, which would act as a router to the individual school sites, should be made specifically for the project. The web address for this site was suggested as: www.eu-create.com. Graeme Sagar would investigate an ISP to host this new site.
Woodbridge reported that the CREATE project was to be introduced to Year 10 students by the Art Department.
Saarnilaakson Koulu described their idea for the project which was to be an illuminated sculpture operated by correct solutions to a crossword puzzle. The sculpture would consist of layered images within a box viewed by a Webcam situated above.
Sulingen had investigated the possibility of commercial production of a double-sided pcb board for the interface components and it was agreed that this should be paid for from the project funds. They will then be distributed to each of the partner schools.
Friday, the 2nd March 2001Present
Tibor Kaszta/ Éva Nagy/ Karoly Burján/ Peter Hidvegi/ Jouni Kupiainen/ Jori Haapanen/ Eckhard Hellmich/ Hannelore Dietze/ Graeme Sagar/ Andrew Garfath-Cox
Future plans for the project
It was established that this is the first year of the CREATE project which started on the 1st April 2000 and finishes on the 31st July, 2001. The second year then runs to end of July 2002, and the final year of the project ends at the end of July 2003. Two meetings have been held in this first year from the COMENIUS 1 funding; in Sulingen, Germany (29th November 2000 – 2nd December 2000) and in Ajka, Hungary (28th February, 2001 – 4th March 2001).
It was agreed that the next meeting in the second year of the project would be held in Woodbridge from Wednesday, the 7th November 2001 – Sunday, the 11th November 2001.
The second meeting will be held in Finland timed for a date towards the end of April 2002.
In addition to the staff meetings, which are expected to be 2 each year, in the second year of the project there is provision in the funding for Head Teacher visits and student participation of a maximum of 4 travelling grants for students each year per country. It was agreed that at the next meetings, students should accompany the staff as follows:
| Woodbridge Meeting, November 2001 |
| 4 Finnish students + 2 German Students + 2 Hungarian students |
| Saarnilaakson Koulu Meeting, April? 2002 |
| 4 English students + 2 German students + 2 Hungarian Students |
A provisional Agenda for the November meeting
Further agenda items to be agreed
Future Objectives
What stage will we have reached by November?
The project LEDs in each school will be controllable from any of the others by the NOVEMBER 2001 meeting and a model will be viewable by a webcam at the same time as the control of it.
Participating schools will be able to communicate in real-time with one another using vide-conferencing by MAY 2001
At least, some simple models will have been created by Art colleagues for presentation at the NOVEMBER 2001 meeting.
A common report, in English, will be created as a summary of the first year of progress by submission of contributions which document and evaluate in detail the progress made during the year. Éva Nagy offered to compile the document for distribution to participating members who could then send them to their own National Office.
Éva reported that she had been on a course for filling in the Application forms (which are accompanied by guidelines that run to 120 pages) for this project in Budapest.
Technical Details
Some technical details were agreed as follows:
A maximum of 16 channels would be permitted. One channel will be reserved for public access to operation of the sculpture.
The control of the sculpture will be from the project page of the website.
The control of the sculpture would be restricted to participating schools by a password but the sculpture would be viewable by anyone accessing the site.
A separate computer would be allocated to the project sculpture.
The control software on the board will be common to all.
An agreement was made on the structure of the CREATE.TXT file. The existing order of the data will remain unchanged with the following additional fields added in this precise order:
Finally……
Jouni Kupiainen suggested that now „We must start to plan the project from the artistic point of view" and the Chairman asked all participating schools to encourage their artistic colleagues.
Any Other Business
It was agreed that students should be encouraged to collaborate both by email and using video-conferencing. The email addresses of students participating in the project will be present on the project website so that everyone is just a click away from communicating with one another.
It was agreed that a list of email addresses should be sent to Eckhard Hellmich so that he can add them to a mailing list for all participants in the project (both teachers and students). It was suggested that schools appoint a student who can keep track of any ideas relevant to the project in a cyber postbox.
Eventually, in the final stages of the project, an ultimate aim is to place a model in the European Parliament so that evidence of the Project funding can be revealed.
Thanks
There was the unanimous wish to express, to our Hungarian hosts, our sincere thanks for their generous hospitality. The time devoted to the project by Éva Nagy and the unstinting support of the Director, Iván Hartmann was greatly appreciated by all participants.
Ajka, Friday, 2nd March 2001
AHGC took the minutes for both meetings
Report of the Meeting held in Woodbridge 7-11 November 2001
With thanks to Beata Mecseki (Hungary) for taking the Minutes.
This meeting concentrated on the position and achievements of each country, with an aim to pinpoint problem areas. The project at this stage is so close to becomming a working reality.
This was also the first time students had been directly been involved, and visited another of the project member countries.
Report:
Morning -
1 The meeting commenced by reviewing our activities and decisions following the last meeting in Hungary. (Report previous).
2 Report from schools -
GERMANY - Video
presentation of their Sculpture (manually opperated), resident in the School's foyer. It
has obviously caused much interest within the School, and also offered a good deal of
stimulus for the current meeting. The next stage would be the creation of an internet
connection to the Sculpture.
HUNGARY -
Presentation of control unit.They are currently working on problems with motors on their
model. Following trials, the connection with Sulingen proved difficult.
UK - Laptop
presentation with pictures showing educational views. Dragons, flags, hammer,fountain, are
ideas of children at the school.
Expectation - How soon can we see this happening on the internet?
3 Meeting the headmaster
Afternoon -
4 Report from schools continued -
FINNISH - presentation continued in the afternoon.They present their crossword puzzle and text with the meaning of a sculpture, and home page with part of a picture.The next stage is for them to explain the problem over the internet.
5 DONM - It was agreed to meet again in Finland over the period 13-17 March 2002.
The meeting continued with a visit to the Design & Technology exhibition in Birmingham to see aspects of Technology teaching in England. It also included a meeting at the Design and Technology Association (DATA) stand, with a talk by the Chief Executive - Andy Brecon.( www.data.org.uk ).