Friday, November 21, 2014

What do you get when you combine 5th grade, Robots, and the Thinkery?

Answer:  A unique awesome learning experience for all!

I'm so thankful for our partnership with the Thinkery for many reasons, but a big one is the collaboration for our Robotics unit.  They helped me develop curriculum around Lego Mindstorm Robotics, helped supply more kits, and were hands on help during the class.  These 5th graders have been introduced to Mindstorm before so this is more of an advanced class. Their project was to work with a partner to design their robot to look like an animal of their choosing (even make believe ones!).  They could decorate it as they liked once they built the robot.  They then built a habitat that was appropriate for that animal.  They were super creative with this part of the project!  Their programming challenge was to make their robot move and interact with the habitat as it should in the real world.  Some examples of this were:  a dolphin who's tail actually moved; a dog that fetched a ball; a monkey that moved around trees; and a unicorn that went into its castle.  I love giving the students broad topics like this and seeing what they come up with to make it awesome.  I know I say this for a lot of things, but this is possibly my favorite part of teaching.  
I could not have pulled a project of this magnitude off without the help of the Thinkery staff.  They are such a valued partner in education!

Here are some pictures of the process:








All of their hard work was rewarded with a showcase and a party (complete with photo booth)!  Their Pre-K buddies came by to see it all as well.  Here are some pictures from that fun day.






































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