Forsyth County (GA) will be offering a class this summer called "Robotics Camp" that I'll be teaching; it will be using my Mayan Adventure book - can't wait. I'll be having one morning session and one afternoon session (10 kids per session). Should be fun...
It starts July 28 and runs through August 1, 2008. I'll be taking pictures and writing about the camp each day on the blog. There's talk that the classes will fill up quickly, so register early!
www.forsythco.com and the PDF catalog can be downloaded here (my class is on page 11).
10 comments:
Jim, is there any chance you'll be taking this on the road? How about a few more States?
Chris
It would probably be cost prohibitive for any organization that needed me to travel out of Atlanta-area to teach this week-long class... but I'm certainly not closing any doors.
I will be collecting all my course material, notes, lectures, etc... and may make them available to others who want to teach a Mayan Adventure course.
Hi Jim,
I am new to your blog and started a robotics team at my school last fall. I taught a one-day Duke TIP class to 5th and 6th graders in February. 15 kids were put into four teams. Each team built and programmed the ExploroBot, followed by one of the other robots. It was a great day! Thank you for creating such a cool book. My StringBot group modified the design by bracing the string on opposite outsides with additional gears. This kept it from slipping off the twine.
Jessica Mallard
Hi, Jessica.
Thanks for sharing about your class - I would love to see some pictures if you have any! I'm already preparing for my class (2, actually - 1 in morning, 1 in afternoon - 10 kids each). Can you give me any feedback on time - how long did it take your kids to build and program the Explorobot? Did they follow my program instructions exactly or did they modify the program, too?
Thanks,
Jim Kelly
I started preparing in December. I built all the robots and took photographs of each step. I put the pictures in little photo albums. The only team that had issues with building from the photos was PushBot. I gave each kid a manual specific to the job he/she had. In teams of four, there were two programmers and two builders. The more experienced (I sent out letters ahead of time and grouped kids based on their responses) were Programmer 2 and Builder 2. The less experienced were Programmer 1 and Builder 1. The 1's did ExploroBot under the guidance of the 2's. Then, on the more complicated robots, the less experienced kids were helpers to the more experienced ones. All kids built, programmed (from the book), and tested ExploroBot from 10-12. Three of four teams had completely successful runs. Most programmers and one set of builders began their second robots before lunch. We had three hours in the afternoon. From 1-3 the groups built and programmed their second robots. At 3:00, we went from place to place (each challenge was in a separate room in one hall), I read the story and the team showed off its robot. The SnapShotBot and PushBot teams didn't have time to do a lot of testing, but they gave the other kids a good idea of what the robot could do. I have tons of pictures. How would I get those to you? Next time I teach it, I am going to make the programmers do it from scratch. They finished early in each group. I may also only do the first three bots unless I have advanced builders attending, or maybe I could pre-build some of the parts (like the cage on PushBot).
Feel free to email me a zip file or as many photos as you like - with your permission and help, I'd love to post a news item on the blog about your experience - "your help" would be I'd like to ask you to writeup some more about the entire experience for me to include in the blog post... again, with your permission.
Thanks.
Jim
jktechwriter@gmail.com
Wow, thanks! I'll work on that this weekend. I don't know how to zip files though.
Jessica
Email me and I can help you with that.
Jim
Will you be offering this type of camp anywhere else in Atlanta area? I'm interested in Fulton or Gwinnett county areas.
I'm not sure - last year's class was canceled due to low enrollment... they had 2 classes, 10 per each and only got 4 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon... not enough to schedule the facilities.
If you know of an organization in either of those counties that would like to hold a class, please let me know.
Jim
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