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I made a girl smile today! — Parallax Forums

I made a girl smile today!

HannoHanno Posts: 1,130
edited 2011-11-17 10:34 in Propeller 1
Today I took some TBots to a local school in an area that was particularly badly hit in this year's earthquake. I started by showing them the components that make up a robot and then showed how to program the robots to play music, flash the red/gree/blue light with their favorite colors all while moving around. In the next 20 minutes the group of 10 to 14 year olds explored all sorts of concepts with 12Blocks including: reacting to sounds, loops, variables and text to speech.
The kids had some experience with the MIT's “Scratch” language and were therefore able to quickly get going. They were very excited to do “real world learning”.

One of the kids was a 10 year old girl who was particularly affected by the quake and hadn't smiled since Februrary. Her teacher told me afterwards that it had been his mission all year to make her smile and finally today she did - learning with the TBot. The story ends on an even better note, the school is now developing a robotics program around their new TBot and 12Blocks.
Hanno

Comments

  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2011-11-16 23:24
    That has to have been rewarding! Thanks for sharing the experience!

    -Phil
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,069
    edited 2011-11-16 23:31
    Great news Hanno. Well done!
  • RonPRonP Posts: 384
    edited 2011-11-16 23:43
    Hanno,


    A smile is a psychical expression. I think you may have done more for the little girl, than just make her smile. You might have given her hopes and dreams back. WOW :smile:



    Ron
  • sylvie369sylvie369 Posts: 1,622
    edited 2011-11-17 03:49
    Excellent. That makes it so worthwhile.
  • AleAle Posts: 2,363
    edited 2011-11-17 03:59
    Thumbs up !, ditto what RonP said (thumbup)
  • potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,261
    edited 2011-11-17 06:54
    Awesome.

    Great stuff Hanno!
  • photomankcphotomankc Posts: 943
    edited 2011-11-17 07:08
    I know one of the real cool aspects of my high school was the fact I got to be in a class with 12 robotic arms/conveyors and a tiny CNC lathe. Learning all the difficulty in getting a mechanical system that has no awareness to take something from here and move it to there was eye-opening. It was a fantastic class and I loved it. I think that's awesome that some other kids will get to have the experiance of programming and working with a robot of any kind. Not many schools get to offer that.

    That would be a real blast to be able to get kids interested like that!
  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    edited 2011-11-17 07:32
    Hanno,

    This is fabulous!!

    Smiles are a terrible thing to lose and you gave her a chance to find them again!
  • tingotingo Posts: 87
    edited 2011-11-17 08:02
    Wonderful story - well done!
  • HShankoHShanko Posts: 402
    edited 2011-11-17 08:49
    Amazing what a bot could do for a child. And it was your TBot and 12Blocks that helped give her back her smiles. Wow! Another 'thanks for sharing', Hanno.
  • Martin HodgeMartin Hodge Posts: 1,246
    edited 2011-11-17 08:51
    Hanno, FTW!
  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2011-11-17 09:00
    Thanks for sharing.
  • HannoHanno Posts: 1,130
    edited 2011-11-17 10:34
    Thanks everyone!
    I owe a special thanks to the people who worked on the karplus-strong string synthesis (lonesock and jeff-o):
    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?131306-Karplus-Strong-on-the-Propeller
    The girl mentioned that she played piano, so I had her compose a couple notes for each team.

    And of course the biggest thanks to Chad- the real brain behind the TBot. And congratulations to taking the kids he's mentored to first place in a robotics competition earlier this week!

    Hanno
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