Our Lady's Academy
Accredited by the New England Association of Schools & Colleges

Waltham students turn toys into ingenious inventions.

Photo Caption: Student Jennifer Mills has teacher Peter O'Callaghan look over her robot during a robotics demonstration by teacher Peter O'Callaghan's students at Our Lady's Academy.

WALTHAM — Ten-year-old Alec Pishdohiam was quite pleased Tuesday night with his handiwork: a robot made of Lego blocks that he programmed to golf, spin upon command, follow a black line, and move forward when its back bumps into something.

He named it “Little Stinker.”

“I’m very good at building – I have lots of Legos at home. This was more complicated, because you have to program it, and plug all these wires in,” said Pishdohiam, a fourth-grader at Our Lady’s Academy and Waltham resident.

“It’s really fun, because I usually build with Legos at home, and I never built a Lego like this before – it’s actually a robot,” Pishdohiam said.

Pishdohiam was one of 20 students at Our Lady’s Academy to build a robot using Legos, and then show it off at the school’s first robotic exhibition Tuesday.

“Mr. (Peter) O’Callaghan, our science teacher, taught us how to plug in the USB drive and put commands into the robot,” said Pishdohiam.

With the help of his partner, fellow fourth-grader Jamie Mills, Pishdohiam estimated it took him three weeks to build the robot, and two weeks to program it.

“It’s really cool,” he said.

Peter O’Callaghan, who runs the after-school robotics program, said he started the club this fall at the behest of the school principal, Chandra Minor.

He and Minor wanted to give students a chance to delve into more technology-advanced projects, to see how robots operate, he said.

They had to think logically, step by step, in order to properly build and program their robot, O’Callaghan said.

Students volunteered to meet for 11 weeks to learn how to build and program robots, he said.

“The response was overwhelming,” O’Callaghan said.

Twenty students, working in teams of two, built 10 robots using the Lego Mindstorm Education package and instructions, he said.

“I was blown away when I opened the box of Legos – it was a million little pieces together. I thought, ‘How are they going to do it?’ – and they just did it,” he said.

“They diligently followed the instructions” in the Lego’s manual, O’Callaghan said.

The instruction manual featured only pictures, no written directions.

Using the manual, students programmed their robots to follow a straight black line, then a figure eight, and other commands, he said.

Students used their competitive drive to make their robots better and faster, he said.

“They competed with each other as they built it, and raced each other in the hallway,” O’Callaghan said.

Beyond the good natured races, the show was not an actual competition, and students at Our Lady’s will not compete with other schools this year because the program is new, he said.

“The show went well. Not all the robots worked, because some kids deleted their program, or forgot to save it, or forgot which computer they did it on,” but several students did successfully build a working robot, O’Callaghan said.

Pishdohiam installed a “really fast racing program” in his robot, which he found particularly thrilling.

“It just keeps going straight for a half an hour,” until he commands it to stop, he said.

Now that he finished building his robot, and has to return all the parts so other students can learn how to do the same, Pishdohiam said he will probably buy his own components and build a robot at home.

His father, Armen, said he was not surprised that Alec was successful in building a working robot.

“At home, he’s constantly inventing. He takes regular toys, adds an engine or modifies it, so it only makes sense he did something like this,” said Armen Pishdohiam.

“He’s learned so much through this. Not just the mechanics of building a robot, but the computer science behind it, and the mindset, following instructions that are so detailed,” he said.

Joyce Kelly can be reached at 781-398-8005 or jkelly@cnc.com.