High-Tech Robots Give Lowdown to Computer Class

Can you imagine students voluntarily staying in class after the school day is over?

“We keep the room open until 4 p.m. and have to ask them to clear the room so we can go home,” said Gwen Davis, who teaches an advanced robotics class loaded with sophisticated machinery.

With such high-tech classroom robot performers as Topo, Elvira (the Valiant Turtle) and Arbie, who looks like R2D2 in “Star Wars,” it’s no wonder the class is a sellout every day.

And the nine robots in her class are just part of the action.

Davis, 39, of Orange, actually teaches computer science classes at El Rancho Middle School in Anaheim Hills. “The robots give the students a better understanding of computer programming.” They help bridge the gap between the concrete and the abstract and are a way for students to understand what they are doing with computers, she said.

The eighth-grade robotics class is an elective, but the computer class is required in the seventh grade.

Students can see the results of programming by working with the robots, such as Topo, who can be told to move in certain ways, solve certain problems and speak in many languages.

“And Topo can be a girl or a guy,” said Davis, who once “programmed” a nonprofit preschool in Oklahoma before coming to El Rancho 3 years ago.

Part of her current success comes from that experience, which included learning how to raise money and get help from governmental agencies.

The robots and many of the computers were bought with state and federal grants, and money from local businessmen and the school’s Associated Student Body. “We also have a fantastic principal (Ralph Jameson) who somehow seems able to find money or grants for equipment and programs.”

Those funds are also used to buy video cameras to record the work done by the computer class, and television monitors to show it. The school plans to produce a newscast over its closed-circuit television system.

Her advanced robotics class has been garnering attention. “We just had some people here from Australia and they couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I love what I’m doing, and that’s why (the students) love it too.”

A robot that is 5 feet, 7 inches tall is expected to be delivered late this month. “The kids are going to love it,” she predicted.

At her birthday party Thursday, Agnes Morley of Garden Grove no doubt will talk about the beautiful lakes and rolling hills in Ireland, where she was born and raised.

The party-goers will also hear about her early school days, when she and other children would sit around a fireplace to warm themselves, and how as an adult she was thrilled to get her first ride in a car.

She may also reminisce about her five brothers and four sisters, and about how two of her sisters persuaded her to come to the United States, and eventually to Orange County.

Agnes, who lives at the Orangegrove Rehabilitation Hospital in Garden Grove, has a lot to remember.

She was born Jan. 28, 1887, and will be celebrating her 102nd birthday, 2 days early.

Steven Gribben, a sixth-grade student at Harbor Day School in Corona del Mar, had a good idea.

He thought a light in a cane would be helpful to aid handicapped people walking in the dark.

That idea was so good, judges named him winner of a national invention contest held to motivate children to develop creative problem-solving skills.

The Weekly Reader magazine contest attracted more than 100,000 entries.

Steven won a $250 savings bond and his teacher, Amy Sauter, was given a $250 grant from the National Invention Center to help her foster creative and inventive thinking by students.

Scott Kray, 24, of La Habra is a very good bowler who has a 223 average in his men’s scratch league at La Habra 300 Bowl, a fitting name for his most recent series.

Kray bowled 300, 299 and 254 for an 853 total.

But bowling perfect games is becoming a habit with him. “I think I’ve bowled 8 of them,” he said.