Clifton Roozeboom

In this project, the team will fully develop a product where students play with a matchbox-sized car that includes a sensor that tracks scientific data. Speed, velocity, and acceleration are physics concepts that are relatively intuitive because students have some innate understanding from their personal experiences, such as riding a bike or going on a roller coaster. However, experimenting with speed and other motion concepts in the science classroom remains difficult and current solutions ...

In this project, the team fully developed and tested TaylorAI, an artificial intelligence (AI) formative feedback and assessment system for hands-on science investigations. Research demonstrates that STEM interventions that provide formative results back to students can build competence as they engage in laboratory activities. However, educators and students often have difficulty measuring and applying data from inquiry activities to further ideas, skills, and knowledge of STEM.

Through prior projects and IES-funded SBIR projects in 2017 and 2018, the company developed an intervention called PocketLab, which includes a sensor that students use to collect scientific data, a dashboard to present data, and a notebook to catalogue data. In this project, the research team will develop a new prototype of a matchbox-sized car with embedded sensors for measuring velocity, acceleration, and force, for use in hands-on physical science classrooms.

With Phase I and Phase II funding from prior IES-funded SBIR project, the developer created a wireless device that transmits scientific data from hands-on experiments carried out by middle school students to a dashboard that presents results from student work in real-time.

During this project, the team fully developed and tested PocketLab Notebook (formerly CloudLab), a web-based dashboard to present scientific data captured by sensors during experiments. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize that students should have actual experience doing science and engineering so that students can apply learning to the real world. However, students often have difficulty collecting, measuring, and applying data from inquiry activities to furthering their i...

Prior to receiving this Phase I award, the project team developed PocketLab, a set of web-based hands-on science simulations for middle school classrooms. With this Phase I funding, the team developed and tested a prototype of CloudLab, a classroom management platform to extend the functionality of PocketLab.