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In lugnet.edu, Rick Kirkwood writes:
> I have started an after-school robotics club at my kids' elementary school.
> I will be
> spending one hour a week each with groups of K-2nd grade and 3rd-5th grade,
> 6 kids in each group, working with the RIS set. The school is a gifted
> magnet school (high potential kids, there by choice) and kids tend to be
> brighter and better focused than average. There is a wide variety of LEGO
> experience among the kids, one or two may be maniacs, but without TECHNICS
> experience; Most are LEGO-limited. There is also a 50-50 mix of boys and
> girls.
I've been thinking about doing exactly the same thing at my daughter's
school (she is in 3rd grade).
I was planning to follow some of the curriculum guides from Pitsco Lego-Dacta
(http://www.pitsco-legodacta-store.com/pld5/dir2.icl?
SECID=7&SUBSECID=36&ORDERIDENTIFIER=ID943156395078131B5A)
(or http://www.pitsco-legodacta-store.com and follow the Robolab
links to get to the curriculum section)
The amusement part and starter kits seem well suited to 1 hour sessions,
if one is willing to accept that the kids in the lower grades may take
more than one session to get through some of the activities, but in
general, they are very focused activities with the intent of transfering
knowledge needed for the later activities, with the opportunity for
creativity expanding as you work through them and gain enough base
knowledge to exercise the creativity.
The RoboLAB software seems ideally suited to the educational environment
(I used to work for National Instruments, whose LabVIEW sw is the basis
for RoboLAB).
The down side is that to do it right, one needs to buy a couple of amusement
park sets [$100 ea, no RCX] (probably 2-3 for the group size you describe,
since you'll have them working in teams) or a starter set ($307, you'd only
need one set, again no RCX)], enough RCX's to allocate one per group,
plus the RoboLAB SW ($100 for a site license, cheap at twice the price, or
$25 each x the number of groups you want to support). And the curriculum
guides ($25 each, you only need one per curriculum you intend to do) I'm
planning to finance this venture myself, but I bet you could get a PTA or
local company to spring for the up-front costs.
If you find a way to finance the cost, the team challenge looks very
promising as a "finale" though the younger grades may need a little
help... ($209/set, one set per team of 4, though I'm told it is basically
the same as the RIS set except for more durable packaging (i.e. sorting
trays for all the parts, etc.).
Let me know how your experience goes! I'm thinking of starting in Feb
or so (may have to obtain insurance, etc...)
-Peter
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Teaching robotics
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| (...) I have been teaching lego robotics for the last year. I started last year teaching 3rd - 5th graders after school. This year I'm teaching a group of home-schooled middle schoolers during the day and I started a group at my son's elementary (...) (25 years ago, 21-Nov-99, to lugnet.edu, lugnet.robotics, lugnet.robotics.edu)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Teaching robotics
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| I have started an after-school robotics club at my kids' elementary school. I will be spending one hour a week each with groups of K-2nd grade and 3rd-5th grade, 6 kids in each group, working with the RIS set. The school is a gifted magnet school (...) (25 years ago, 10-Nov-99, to lugnet.edu, lugnet.robotics, lugnet.robotics.edu)
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