Attack of the robot scientists

Contact: Nancy Ambrosiano, nwa@lanl.gov, (505) 665-4610

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LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Dec. 12, 2000 -- Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory will bring the cold, hard, hand of science to bear in the classroom this week. Armed with a box of robot kits and a cumulative 100-plus years of professional experience, five Lab scientists will do a show-and-tell that should turn some heads Thursday among their third-grade audience at Jemez Valley Elementary School.

The Los Alamos Space Science Outreach (LASSO) Committee and the Laboratory's Center for Space Science and Exploration are sponsoring the outreach effort. Paul Argo, of the Los Alamos High Performance Computing Environments group, Kurt Moore and Laboratory Fellow William Feldman of Space and Atmospheric Sciences, plus Jan Frigo and James Michel of Space Instrumentation and Systems Engineering, will head into third-grade classrooms after addressing a group of math and science teachers.

The researchers will explain to the students some of the basic science principles, show how robotics and related sciences are important to the nation's space exploration effort, and then get to the good stuff: They'll unbox a set of robot kits and stand back as population of little mechanical creatures takes shape. The students will be able to take their robotic creations home with them when they're done.