Wednesday, July 4, 2018

LEGO Robotics with the TUSD Extended Day Program


We just completed two weeks of LEGO Robotics with the Tehachapi Unified School District's Summer Fun Program!  We offered both the LEGO Mindstorms and LEGO WeDo 2.0 systems as was age appropriate, since the TUSD Summer Fun Program serves kids from preschool through 8th grade.  

For kids that were entering 4th through 8th grades, we used the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Hydrodynamics challenge to give them opportunities to design, build, and program LEGO Mindstorms robots to achieve game objectives.  If you have a group that is active in FLL, using the prior year's challenge is a great way to get kids engaged in LEGO Mindstorms and help them build skills in robotics.  Each year, the FLL challenge involves a 4' x 8' game board with over a dozen challenging tasks that kids can design their robot to complete.  There is a starting point in one corner of the board, with grids and angles so kids can take care in aligning their robot before sending it off to autonomously complete a task.  The robot has to return to the starting point and then the kids can activate another program to complete a new task.  There are clear vision targets on the board, so students can use sensors to aid in their task completion, or if they aren't ready for using sensors, kids can measure distances or rotations, or even use timing to get the robot to where it needs to be.

The great thing about using the FLL challenge is that each objective is worth a certain amount of points, and the students must complete their run on the board in just a couple of minutes. The kids have to budget their time and energy - they can't complete all the tasks! The kids have great conversations about value of points, the time their robot will take on the field, and about the likelihood of their robot completing each challenge (and getting home) on the first try.  If you are looking for a program that can give your kids a well rounded experience in so much more than "playing with LEGOs," check out FIRST LEGO League.  Find a team in your area or even go watch one of the local competitions to see what it's all about!  You will not be disappointed!

For the younger kids, we used LEGO WeDo 2.0 robotics kits and Apple iPads.  The WeDo app on the iPad includes stories and step by step instructions for the kids to build WeDo robots that go along with the stories. There is a variety of stories and activities that appeal to a wide range of ages and abilities. The WeDo's are an educational product, but the kits are available on both Amazon and the LEGO for Education website.