Kindergarteners at Andalusia Elementary School have partnered with the Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative to program robots as a way to increase their problem solving and critical thinking skills.
The robots are called “Blue-Bots,” because of their capability to connect to Bluetooth. Directional keys are used to enter commands, which send the Blue-Bot forward, backward, left and right. The robot is a tool for teaching counting, sequencing, estimation and problem solving.
This project is a part of their Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math Initiative or STEAM.
STEAM is a way to take the benefits of STEM and complete the package by integrating the arts.
“It allows students to connect their learning in these critical areas,” Patti Taylor, curriculum coordinator of Andalusia City Schools, said. “The city council and the mayor have been very supportive.”
Along with the students, the teachers also have to receive training to use the equipment.
“We have to give proper training to the teachers as well,” Taylor said. “Especially with all the iPads we are using in the classrooms now.”
Taylor said that Sarah Mixon, a teacher at Andalusia High School, is teaching her students how to use code.
“I think what she is doing will become obsolete,” Taylor said. “Since we are teaching these kids basically what she teaches, the idea is that they will already have an accelerated comprehension of it so she will have to have a more advanced subject.”
Gary Odom, the information technology specialist at Andalusia City Schools, wants teachers to think outside of the box when it comes to technology.
“I don’t know of a time in history when we were teaching kids this early about programming robots,” Odom said. “It is all about engaging the students. When you engage them, there is not a discipline problem in sight.”
Odom said that the technology that they are using right now is only a tool to help with critical thinking and problem solving.
“The goal is to one day get this technology in the hands of every student at the school,” Odom said.
“We are training these kids so early so whenever they get in the real world, after graduation, they will be able to excel in whatever job area they are in,” Taylor said. “I think by doing this we are preparing them for whatever job they have.
Andalusia head football coach Trent Taylor joined members of the Andalusia Board of Education in Municipal Stadium Tuesday for an update on AHS construction projects.
“I look out at it and think, ‘Please don’t rain,’ ” Taylor said, when asked about the daily progress he sees in the project. “I’m sorry for the farmers, but I really hope we go 90 days without rain. A major drought.”
With Andalusia’s first home game slated in the new stadium on August 31, Brian Ray of Wyatt Sasser Construction, who is managing the project, estimated Tuesday the project is 20 to 25 percent done.
“If we don’t have major hiccups,” Ray said, “We’ll have the field house complete by July 13. The plaza will be done by August 10, with both the ticket booth and concessions. The press box will be October 17, and the auditorium will be in November.”
Fencing at the stadium is schedule for July 17, he said, and guard rails and hand rails will be in place by July 12.
“If we can make all of that happen, we can play ball here,” he said.
To make that happen, crews are often working 14 hour days, he said. And there has been someone working in the stadium every Saturday since the construction began. Even as board members wandered through the stadium and auditorium, crews were working on the surface on which artificial turf will be installed.
Ray and other employees of Wyatt Sasser Construction answered questions for board members and the media, and posed a few of their own. Yet to be finalized are the size and style of the scoreboard. Ray said the sound system engineers need the dimensions to determine the size of speakers for the scoreboard.
And the board questioned why there are were no water spickets installed on the sidelines. Ray said the engineering designs did not call for water on the sidelines, but said it’s not too late to remedy that.
The Andalusia Board of Education on Thursday approved several additions to its base contract for work at Andalusia High School.
Those additions included:
- Removing a canopy outside the auditorium which once provided shelter when accessing the band room. To replace it would have cost $22,750.
- Replacing tile in the bathroom at the AHS auditorium, which was not in the original bid. Superintendent Ted Watson said the original tile was damaged when renovations began. The estimated cost is $7,300.
- Replacing concrete behind the home bleachers, estimated at $35,000.
- Painting the metal top of the canopy in what will now be the plaza area of the stadium. The base bid contract calls for the existing structure to be pressure washed and the base repainting. The contactor had proposed replacing the canopy at an estimated $109,000, but the board opted to add only $5,000 to $8,000 to have the canopy painted.
- Upgrading to decorative metal fencing for the entire stadium. The original drawings called for this, but when the board asked for the project to be value engineered, more than 300 feet of fencing was calculated as chain link in the base contract bid. The upgrade is expected to cost $105,000.
The measure was approved on a 3-2 vote, with board chairman David McCalman breaking the tie. Board member Amy Dugger was adamant the decorative fencing would be used.
“I mean. We are Andalusia,” she said.
Dugger and David Bryant voted for the fencing; board members Tommy Wright and Walter Wytch voted against spending the additional money.
“It would look nice, but at this point, I think we should hold on that price,” Wright said.
- Adding additional drainage to move storm water runoff from the buildings around the the stadium into the drainage system installed on the field. Last weekend, the combination of heavy rains and the change in drainage patterns caused by work being done on the auditorium and field caused a retaining wall to collapse on the softball field. The estimated cost is $10,000.
- Adding drainage at the far end of the stadium near the football facility. The board was asked to consider adding the draining and doing additional landscaping there at a cost of $50,000. They voted to only do the draining part, and to ask the city to help with landscaping as an in-kind donation.
The board discussed, but made no decision on a scoreboard. Earlier this week, they were told that an immediate decision was needed before the installation of artificial turf begins in May, but that changed this week.
The board is getting pricing and waiting to hear from a potential sponsorship that would fund a video board.
Council votes to pursue funding for AHS project
The Andalusia City Council will pursue grant funding for sidewalk project that will “put a bow on” the ongoing $12.5 million in renovations at Andalusia High School.
Troy Hudson and Gabby Sanders of Southern Engineering Solutions showed preliminary drawings to the council in November when they proposed pursuing a Transportation Alternative Program (TAP) grant.
Sanders said the project is designed with six-foot wide sidewalks around the perimeter of the campus, including Third Street, 1st Avenue, Henderson Strret and 4th Avenue. The estimated length is just over a mile.
The project would also widen Coleman Avenue to Henderson Street, adding brick sidewalks on either side, and create a main entrance to the campus from the bypass.
Lampposts similar to those downtown also are included in the project.
The council declined to pursue the grant in November, but changed course yesterday.
“At the time that we looked at it (in November), our share was more than council wanted to put on the project at that time,” Mayor Earl Johnson said. “After that, engineers called us a couple of weeks ago. DOT had extended the deadline on filing, basically because they did not get enough applications. They upped the project amount and increased their portion. As a resultt of some other matters, will reduce what we have to come up with to about $135,000.”
The total project is projected at more than $800.
Johnson said the city expects to have more than $70,000 in matching funds it had set aside for the South Three Notch project that it can set aside for the sidewalk project. It will be two to two and a half years before the city will have to fund the project, he said.
“It’s a no-brainer to me,” he said. “This would be a huge improvement to that neighborhood, and would attract people who would reinvest and rebuild that neighborhood.”
The council voted unanimously to pursue the funding.
Has lease option for hangars, would hire 17-22
The South Alabama Regional Airport Authority Thursday approved a lease option of its twin hangar complex for Yulista.
Yulista chief engineer Rick Toliver, who attended the meeting, told board members Yulista has bid on task work in a contract awarded to Lockheed Martin. If the company wins that bid, he expects Yulista to have 17 to 22 people working at SARA, and Lockheed to have 14 to 25 people working there. Work would begin in this facility between August and September of 2018, he said.
Toliver said Lockheed Martin officials have already visited the local facility, and area pleased with the location as a work site for the subcontract work.
Lockheed Martin would likely bring employees here, Toliver said, while Yulista would hire locally.
Yulista paid $30,000 for the lease option, which SARA will hold until July, airport manager Jed Blackwell said. If Yulista executes its option to lease, it will pay $30,000 per month for the facility.
Yulista is a subsidiary of Calista, an Alaska Native Regional Corporation created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. The for-profit corporation has 17,300 shareholders primarily of Eskimo Yup’ik descent.
Toliver said Yulista works with defense, aerospace, civilian agencies and Homeland Security. It is headquartered in Huntsville.
“This is a very serious thing for us, not a lightly taken thing at all,” Toliver said.