Robotics and Engineering Excitement

We recently went to the learning commons area (formerly known as the library) to try some new robots and other engineering materials.  It was a VERY popular learning experience and will not be our last trip!

Here are some students hard at work using magnetic pieces to create a marble maze!  There is quite a bit of trial and error as students try to get it right.

These are the Dash robots.  Each one can do something different.  Programming one to drive a path on the floor or another one to play a tune was great learning fun!

Then we tried the little Ozbots that follow the colored lines on a surface to control where they move and what special things they can do.  Students used markers on paper to draw a pathway and tell their Ozbot to speed up, spin, or other commands.  We had a whole page of commands students could choose from.

Another station the students enjoyed was also using the Ozbots, but instead of using markers on paper to code the pathway, students used a drawing app on the iPad and the robots followed that path right on their screen!

All of these activities required students to plan ahead, check whether their plan was working, and revise to make things happen the way they intended.  The sequence of the instructions mattered and students had to pay attention to detail for things to work right.  Students are learning about different coding systems and about the way objects move and behave.  Some activities required negotiating with partners to complete the task and some were independent.  All of these skills will be useful in many areas of the curriculum and in real life!