Homeschool Meet-Up: BeeBots & Blocks

A monthly Thursday morning library program for homeschool families. 

Goals:

·                     Opportunity to explore STEAM concepts in a relaxed setting.

·                     Participants can socialize and connect with other homeschool families.

·                     Students build confidence and cooperative skills by completing tasks together.  

 

Name tag table: 

Invite participants to create a name tag using the die cut shapes, tape, and pens.  

 

Activities of the day: BeeBots & Blocks

Building toy:

-          Wood blocks from the block cabinet

 

STEAM table:

The children explored simple coding using the BeeBot robots.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mindstorm kits at the Library

Thanks to a state library grant, I was able to offer a special program at my library using a number of Lego Mindstorms kits.  If you are not familiar with this awesome, but expensive toy, each kit comes with one control brick and numerous Lego bricks, pulleys, cogs, wheels, connectors, and sensors.  These kits combine technology, engineering, and coding.    

My current library decided to offer a two-hour introductory class for children who have no experience using the EV3 Mindstorms technology.  I started the class by showing a 4-minute video about the basics of Mindstorms block coding and how to transfer the code from the laptop to the brick.  This video was just long enough to keep the students attention as well as relay some needed information.  

After the video I sat on the floor to show off the kits to the students.  I opened up one kit and showed them what was inside.  I also used this time to remind them about and point out some important features (some, but not all, were covered in the video):

• The alphabetic ports on the brick send information out - motors are connected here.
• The numeric ports on the brick receive information - connect sensors here.
• Point out the port where the laptop gets connected to the brick near the alphabetic ports.
• Show how to turn on and off the brick.
• Demonstrate how to move around on the screen of the brick.
• Remind the students to please rename their project/program. (There were projects and programs on the bricks from previous students. If everyone used the default name, then we would never know which project/program belongs to each student.)

Now it was time to break up into groups.  My library got 5 kits for this program, that means we got 5 bricks and 5 laptops.  I needed to have five groups.  I had the children separate into groups according to what they wanted to do.  This helped me distribute the children more evenly to the 5 bricks.

1. Immediately start programming. A pre-assembled basic RileyRover was handed to the members of this group.  The students could jump in and start programming without needing to build anything.  (I got the idea of using the RileyRover from a librarian at the next town over.  It was an excellent idea.  There are detailed instructions on how to build the rover and well thought out lesson plans for this simple robot.)
2. Build a RileyRover and then program it.  This is for the students who love to follow Lego direction manuals to build something. The students can also decide to add a gripper attachment or cargo delivery attachment.  
3. Make your own creations and then program it to do things.  This was by far the most popular choice. These students had to think extra hard to create vehicles and robots that worked with the motors and could support the hefty weight of the brick.

REFLECTION: I am proud of all of the students who attended these classes.  They worked through some hard coding and structural errors that needed to be overcome.  In some cases, they also needed to work on some diplomacy matters to get the whole group working on their project.  

In retrospect, I needed to do more training before organizing these classes.  The sensors that come with the kits required some advanced coding.  The kids really wanted to use them.  I was totally not prepared for this.  I did not leave myself enough time to watch enough videos and read up on these more advanced parts of the kits.  

Ozobot: Learn Basic Coding with this Little Robot

Thanks to a state library grant, I was able to offer a special program at my library using the little Ozobot robot. An Ozobot is a robot about the size of a ping-pong ball that can be used as a teaching tool for basic coding.

At the beginning of my lesson with Ozobot, we looked at how the robot follows lines. I showed the children the basics and then let them explore on their own. What we learned:

• The light sensors on the Ozobot follows lines, printed or drawn.
• The Ozobot needs to be calibrated regularly or when it is acting erratic.  
• It can see certain colors: blue, green, red. When drawing with these colors, the color on the Ozobot's dome will shine the same color as the line. 
• You can give Ozobot commands by using color codes. 
• The order of the colors in the color codes does matter.

I found this online Ozobot Basic Training lesson and this Programming with Colors lesson to be extremely helpful in teaching me what I needed to teach to the children.  

As the children became familiar with the color codes, I then handed out tablets to use with the OzoBlockly website. OzoBlockly uses a graphical drag and drop programming language (very similar to Scratch) to write code for the Ozobot robot. A line of graphical code is placed in a row and then uploaded into the robot by calibrating it on top of the tablet screen. OzoBlockly was rather easy to get started with since it has numbered difficulty.  Even the games start off easy and get harder. The kids with experience in Scratch caught on to this really fast.  

Overall, I thought the Ozobot robots offer a unique experience for a coding class. It is not something many children will have in the home. Since the coding can be done on paper or on the computer/tablet, it gives a multi-sensory opportunity.