Next hardware steps for my 7th and 8th grade Robotics class?

Ken Gracey

Hey all,

Usually I'm providing answers to educators, but I need your input since I'm asking questions that don't pertain to Parallax hardware.

I think that many of you already know that I volunteer at our local middle and high school to run a robotics program. I need some input on how to spend some money ($3500) for the middle school program, so let me give a little bit of background. A year ago I started the middle school program as an elective for students who didn't need to use the period for re-teaching of other courses (math, science, etc.). Students were able to choose between Robotics, Band and a Geography course. Parents whose children were in Band were unable to attend Robotics, and those who were in Robotics really enjoyed it. Robotics became very popular and it the school switched it from an elective to a required course.Therefore, every student in 7th and 8th grade will go through the course over a four-week rotation. Some students even come back for a 2nd or 3rd round, and I move them up to higher projects.

A bit of the history is here: http://forums.parallax.com/entry.php/833-Parallax-President-Ken-Gracey-gets-Hands-on-Teaching-Robotics

I have an effective Middle School science teacher who's picking up the content really nicely. I make it to class about half of the time to help him out.

We use the S2 robot extensively, loosely around Neil Rosenberg's S2 curriculum 28136 S2 Robotics for Beginners Workshop.zip. This takes about three of the four weeks we have available before the rotation switches around and we get a new batch of students. During this time we also do some soldering of the S2 Robot Badge. That takes about a day, maybe two (each class is 45 minutes). Bottom line is that we have about 4-5 more class sessions we can use any way we want. This isn't enough for the Boe-Bot, and it's too much of a challenge for a middle school in 45-minute sessions [exception is that the repeat kids slowly move into Boe-Bot projects].

I'd like to provide the students with more electronics and soldering projects. They really love the hands-on soldering activities. Let me rephrase that to "they go absolutely berserk when they get to build something, especially with 700F!".

The sponsoring science teacher has obtained a $3500 grant for more hardware. We have several challenges in spending this money:

1. Renewable hardware. We want it to go far, and if possible have a reusable component for future classes. Probably not possible with soldering kits, but maybe so?
2. We want more hands-on activity with motors, components, a PCB, hand-eye coordination, maybe resulting in a competition (BEAM robots?).
3. Success. We need success. Half of the students speak English as second language. They think and speak two languages all day so it raises the bar for the teacher being an effective communicator about the desired outcome.

Any input on favored kits, projects or similar educational activities that compliment robotics, hopefully with some reusable hardware? Need some ideas please!

Thanks,

Ken Gracey

NWCCTV

Although not reusable, I bought one of these SMT Learning Kits and am real happy with it. I think it was only $30.00 shipped. I guess you could also teach rework if you have a rework station. http://www.appliedinspirations.com/appliedcontent/Projects/SMD-Soldering/SMD_SolderingKIT.html

garyg

Do You have a good supply of Breadboards?
While the Breadboards would not contribute to any soldering skills, they would enable the
students to work on projects that would advance their skills for the time remaining after completing the
Robotics for Beginners workshop.
It's possible that mounting a certain number of components on a perminant mounting connected by 3pin wire servo interface
would help with things. Small circuit or microcontroller on breadboard could be plugged into the 3Pin wire servo interface to
test the skills that were possibly developed.

That's just my Two Cents worth
Thanks for listening.
gg

charlieknox

Ken - might be interesting to the students to investigate the 555 timer chip, and it's applications - astable, monostable, frequency range, etc. This will involve a voltage divider, & capacitor charging & discharging, seeing the waveform on an oscilloscope, using a potentiometer to vary the frequency, etc, etc, etc. Students even get a kick out of the single output running alternating LEDs, off/on, depending on orientation. The 555 has seemingly endless possibilities, and allows them to see a stand alone chip and what it can do. Another possibility is the 0831 ADC chip. The great thing about middle school kids is they are not jaded, and are ready to learn & experiment. As long as you keep them busy, you're fine. Run out of things to do, and you're in trouble !!

Take care,

Charlie

Ken Gracey

@Charlie, you're a productive teacher. You're dead right about the risks of losing their interests - it can happen in a flash if the next "event" isn't in the queue, at least for middle school. Have you been using your Boe-Bots with middle schoolers? I think mostly high school, right? Let me know if you need to get them refreshed to stay in operation.

@gg, also agreed. Between you and Charlie, I'm being lead to breadboard projects. Of course I have all the components I already need, so this will be easy. The big question I have is whether or not to bring in the BS2 this time. I'd almost like to keep it simple for now and just use the 555 as suggested by Charlie.

For anybody who could answer, what other kinds of small breadboard activities could we do without a microcontroller? I'm familiar with Snap Circuits, the many RadioShack 300-1 kits from years past. Can you identify some newer activities we could do? I need to spend some time on Google myself.

Thanks,

Ken Gracey

TinkersALot

suggest an all expense paid field trip to the tech museum in San Jose....ride the Capital Corridor train...have pizza delivered to the train for the return trip....

TinkersALot

"back in the day" when I was a wee lad, our electronics teacher let us order whatever kid we would like at the beginning of the session and we got to build that at the end. But he did "keep us in check" a bit, so no Heathkit TVs were ever in the mix...various vellmen (sp?) kits could be offered. It is interesting to the kids because they get to pick what the something is.

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

I'd be tempted to use part of that money to buy an oscilloscope. There's a wide gap between what a circuit is designed/programmed to do and what the real-world manifestation of its outputs is. An o-scope helps to bridge that gap by adding one more dot in the void; and you can say, "Look. Here's what the circuit is outputting. You can actually see it. Now you know what the motor/solenoid/servo is reacting to."

-Phil

TinkersALot

now this looks like a neat thing....

http://www.makershed.com/Make_Electronics_The_Complete_Collection_p/mecp4.htm

Martin Hebel

Ken,
At SIUC for years we did BOE-bots as the intro to robotics, and then VEX most times for advanced. This allowed them to be introduced to be mechanics of robotics. We ran the camp as challenges - design robots for specific purposes in a completion style. To be able to pick up and Cary a heavy load, to clean up a small child's clothes off the floor, to pick up toys and put them in a toy box, etc. it involved the kids in conceptualizing, strategizing (different points for different aspects of game play), design, construction, testing, evaluation, etc. plus most had an autonomous aspect to them for extra points. Plus the system is re-useable, with a handful of replacement parts each year. And it allowed them to program in C and be exposed to a very beneficial language.

Android

I would try building a robot from scratch with them. It helped my students develop programming and hardware knowledge.