The OTA Team earned 6th place overall and will compete in the Southern Cal Regionals: Sunday, Dec 8 at Legoland.
Category Archives: Math
OTA MindStorms Robotics Team Competing Today
Mr. Major’s 2013 Fall Team: at the end of Round 1 they are in second place!
Free Robotics Expo this Saturday
Come to this Fun and FREE event This Saturday! The Robo Expo highlights two robotics programs used at OTA: LEGO LEAGUE and BOTBALL! Don’t miss out. Balboa Park, Hall of Champions.
ST Math in the K-3 Lab – Ready to Go!
OTA AfterSchool Programs — Why Join the Chess Club?
Note: After-School Programs will not begin until the second week of school… schedule and sign-up sheet available soon. Thank You.
Why Study Chess? Patience, Planning, Problem-Solving, Puzzling, Perseverance… Chess teaches self-control & humility, grace under pressure, & it makes children smarter.*
Larry Evans Chess Camp is taught by master instructors, using very effective tools and motivation techniques. OTA students loved it during our first year but schedule changes brought it down to once a week last year. Once a week isn’t enough to learn anything! So, we’re bringing it back to two days a week.
- Sign-up Online Now! (Choose Old Town Academy from the dropdown menu: Chess Club will be offered Monday and Wednesday after school.)
- Click to Download Flyer: Old Town Academy-Chess Club Q1 2013
- Get Inspired, watch the film Brooklyn Castle about America’s best chess team!
*
STUDIES (see more studies at Quad City Chess Club)
- In a 1973-74 Zaire study conducted by Dr. Albert Frank, employing 92 students, age 16-18, the chess-playing experimental group showed a significant advancement in spatial, numerical and administrative-directional abilities, along with verbal aptitudes, compared to the control group. The improvements held true regardless of the final chess skill level attained. [1], [2], [7]
- In a 1974-1976 Belgium study, a chess-playing experimental group of fifth graders experienced a statistically significant gain in cognitive development over a control group, using Piaget’s tests for cognitive development. Perhaps more noteworthy, they also did significantly better in their regular school testing, Continue reading
Music News from OTA • Why We Teach Music: Music Education Makes Kids Smarter and Keeps Their Brains Young!
- OTA Music Lab Teaching Intern & Choir Director Anthony Kaneaster is on his way to an International Choir Competition in Korea with his UC Irvine based choir group Men in Blacque. The group took home 3 gold medals at the 2010 world games. Good luck Mr. Anthony! Listen to sample from their repertoire: Shenandoah.
- In the OTA Piano Lab students in Grades K-8 learn to read music, play piano, and train the ear using Solfege (Do-Re-Mi).
- OTA orchestra builds on the ear training and music reading work that students do in Piano Lab. Watch and Listen to some selections from the OTA Orchestra repertoire.
Why 9 Years of Music Education at Old Town Academy?
OTA Student Simone’s brain-on-music at the “Mainly Mozart and the Mind” festival!
At the “Mainly Mozart and the Mind” concert last month we learned from Northwestern university professor Nina Krauss that 6-12 years of music education (playing an instrument) not only makes you smarter, it actually prevents the brain from aging!
More confirmation that we are on the right track at OTA with our focus on early learning advantage courses in the Kiwanis Club of San Diego Piano Lab and our schoolwide focus on Music, Math, & Science.
ST Math program (the innovative visual learning software that Continue reading
OTA Robotics Team Competes in “Mission to Mars” Botball Tournament
Come down and watch the action Saturday April 6 as OTA Students compete against middle and high school teams in the Greater San Diego Botball Tournament. Schedule is below.
Team Members Max, RT, Xavier (Not pictured: Judge Katz, George Riffle, Tom Doar)
This year’s model is the Mars Rover robot. Students must build and program two types of robots to work together collecting samples and returning them to base
“These are the sort of things that 10, 12, 15 years ago computer science PhDs were working on, and now you’ve got 12, 14, 15 year old students doing it.”
– David Lavery,
Solar System Explorations, NASA
OTA Botball Team’s Robots:
To learn more and get directions to the tournament…
OTA Robotics Teams Competing at Legoland
Some team members on the way to the tournament… More Details soon.
Why OTA Teaches Programming – “How America Can Get More Start-Up Talent”
How America Can Get More Start-Up Talent
Build it right at home: Congress should encourage public schools to teach American children how to code just after they learn to multiply.
Read the full article in How America Can Get More Start-Up Talent.
See slideshow from the latest OTA Robotics Tournament, Dec 10. OTA entered 3 teams…. and a more recent update from the 2014 Botball Tournament
Teaching every child to program a computer was a dream of the 1980s when the personal computer first entered the classroom. The dream quickly died out, however (buried under a flood of point-and-click “edu-tainment” software), and the computers ended up programming the children.
At OTA children program the computers; and it all starts with robots…
We not only teach every child in grades K-8 how to read music (their first symbolic language) and play piano, we also teach them to “write code” by teaching them to program Roamer Robots, Probot Racer Robots, and Lego Mindstorms robots.
- Kindergartners, 1st Graders, and 2nd Graders learn to program using Roamer Robot and Roamer World Simulator. New “Roamer Too” robots are on order thanks to a grant from Kiwanis Club of San Diego. Watch VIdeos of K-1 programmers.
- 3rd to 5th graders will start using the Probot “Racer” robot and Terrapin Logo
Simulator in the second quarter thanks to a grant from Kiwanis Club of San Diego. Watch videos of 3rd-5th Programmers - 6th-8th Graders learn to Program with Lego Mindstorms, writing code that will prepare them to write apps for the iPhone/Android or iPad. Watch Videos of SumoBot robotics Competition.
The OTA Math & Science Olympics! uses Robotics to teach Programming, Problem-Solving, Applied Mathematics, and Engineering skills to all Old Town Academy K-8 students.
Thank you to our Robotics Coaches Jeff Major, Jon Doar.
Thank you to our Robotics Coaches Jeff Major, Jon Doar.
OTA Robotics Teams Advance in First Lego League Tournament
10 OTA students participating in 3 teams moved into the next round at the Southern California First Lego League Championship Tournament this Saturday! The next round of the tournament will take place on on Sunday, December 2nd. Come out and support our teams.
- Representing Team Ospreys were: Ethan, Brian, RT, & Matthew.
- Representing the first all-girls robotics team for OTA as Team Major Pain were: Kiki, Maddy, Lupe & Zoe.
- And, competing on the Local Neighborhood Team were: Xavier & Asia.
In order to advance to the next level of competition, students had to compete in 2 separate areas:
(1) Designing, building and programming a semi-autonomous robot.
To see slideshow…