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Robotics Merit Badge — Parallax Forums

Robotics Merit Badge

rcricercrice Posts: 7
edited 2012-02-10 08:39 in Robotics
I work with my son's Boy Scout Troop. BSA has recently rolled out a Robotics Merit Badge. I've volunteered to develop and teach robotics merit badge for the troop.

I have five BOE-bot kits which we will be using. I've played around with the boe-bot enough to feel confident that our Scouts will find building the kit doable. I handed my laptop wit Gui-bot on it and an assembled boe-bot to my own son, and he had it programmed and doing stuff within 15 minutes. So - I feel like I'm on the right track.

Are there folks here who've done this already? Any experience to share on running a robotics merit badge course?

Robert

Comments

  • RobotWorkshopRobotWorkshop Posts: 2,307
    edited 2012-02-09 08:39
    The BOE-Bot should be fine for a Den meeting or something the kids can finish up at home with their friends and parents. The new PropBOE board with the 12-Blocks also looks like it may be a great way for the kids to learn as well.

    I'm supposed to talk about robotics in just over a week at my sons Cub Scout Pack meeting. The theme is engineering and I am going to use robotics as an example to show where the different types of engineering fit it. Mechanical Engineering for the chassis and structure of the robot. Electrical Engineering for the power wiring, Electronic Engineering for the circuit boards, Software engineering for the code to make it move, etc. I'm trying to get my robots ready now and get some demo's coded. I also have a large robot which won't be completely finished but should still show well.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SZrQ-VCR2w

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F83TwxJ9FJo

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI_Wl7OAeoM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDgvKn_u6Fk

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPbLiqkcx-0

    I expect to mention what remaining things are left to do and how I plan to finish it up.

    Robert
  • Jessica UelmenJessica Uelmen Posts: 490
    edited 2012-02-09 09:48
    Hi Robert, welcome to the forums!

    While I haven't actually taught a robotics merit badge course for Boy Scouts, Parallax does have some resources for people who would like to do so at www.parallax.com/go/scouts.

    In the Downloads & Resources section at the bottom of the page is a PowerPoint presentation and a 16-hr robotics course developed for Boy Scouts.

    Best of luck, and let us know how it goes!

    Cheers,
    Jessica
  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    edited 2012-02-09 10:27
    Hi Jessica,

    I followed the links to the StudyRobotics course (http://studyrobotics.com/ ) but it ends up at the BlueHost.com search page for bad URL's

    So sad, I was looking forward to checking this out.

    Me, bad links, Karma???

    Thanks!
  • Jessica UelmenJessica Uelmen Posts: 490
    edited 2012-02-09 12:20
    Oh, bummer, I promise that used to be a page!

    I'll have to look up who submitted the link and see if perhaps it moved.

    Thanks for the heads up!
  • rcricercrice Posts: 7
    edited 2012-02-10 08:39
    Jessica

    Thanks for the pointer. The GUI-bot programming tool has not been updated in a while. Any plans in the works to extend or update that? I like it quite a bit, just wish it were a bit more flexible.

    Robert



    Jessica Uelmen wrote: »
    Hi Robert, welcome to the forums!

    While I haven't actually taught a robotics merit badge course for Boy Scouts, Parallax does have some resources for people who would like to do so at www.parallax.com/go/scouts.

    In the Downloads & Resources section at the bottom of the page is a PowerPoint presentation and a 16-hr robotics course developed for Boy Scouts.

    Best of luck, and let us know how it goes!

    Cheers,
    Jessica
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