Integration Of Data Acquisition And Analysis For Elementary And Middle School Education

This paper presents a solution to providing a way for more K-12 students to experience innovative, hands-on learning with data acquisition and analysis. The concept was developed at Tufts University, in partnership with National Instruments and LEGO Dacta. Through this collaboration, Tufts has developed a graphical programming and data analysis software package for students called ROBOLAB. ROBOLAB was written with LabVIEW, which is a product of National Instruments. Our method utilizes ROBOLAB and the autonomous, programmable LEGO brick, the RCX, and its data logging capabilities. With the Investigator component of the ROBOLAB software, students in Kindergarten through college can take data to answer questions about things that interest them. Inventing a device with which to do the investigation gives the student a greater ownership in it, and in turn, provides the connections between the data and what the data look like on a graph. Our paper gives an overview of the solution and several applications, as well as the student and teacher responses.