Homeschooling

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Friday, 11 April 2014

Robotics class at the Science center

We signed up to attend a lego robotics class at the science center.  I have heard of them but haven't really investigated them in our homeschool.  In our community there are tons of lego robotic summer camps around so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

only six children are in the class which allows for individual time although the class time was short only 30 minutes.

The lego robot was almost completely built but the kids did get to add in a few components of their choosing.

using a computer they worked on programming their robot to move...this took several tries


Then they downloaded their program into the robot.

The simple challenge of this class was to get the robot to push off the barrels from the white portion of the board.  The robot who cleared the most barrels won.   

Each team had several attempts to correct the program on their robot before the competition began

Firedrakes team trying to figure out why their robot is stuck and not turning around.

This was a fun class that really got the kids problem solving and using critical thinking skills.  
Both kids had a lot of fun and I will be looking into more classes particularly for MarioFan who loves all things related to computers.  In case you are wondering Fire drakes team won this event:)
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3 comments:

  1. jmommymom11 April 2014 at 11:48

    I'm interested in these types of classes as well now that my son in 10 years old. I think he would really like them. Was this a one time event? It sounds like a great experience.

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    Replies
    1. The Adventurer12 April 2014 at 12:54

      Hi Julie yes this was a one time event, I would love to do a weekly class with the kids but they are expensive locally

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  2. Maureensk13 April 2014 at 12:14

    That looks like lots of fun! We have a lego technics "school" here that offers classes, but thus far Sola has only taken building classes. I'm not sure if they do robotics also. Have you heard of First Lego League? One of our local homeschool teams went all the way to the nationals (they might have even won). The kids on that team are in high school now and have moved into whatever the advanced division is. My son never wanted to try it though, so I don't know what all it entails.

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