CDTlog

Several teams have now completed the construction, programming and testing of their robots.  Working in teams of three, the process is going to take around five hours for all teams to complete the assignment, and it has been very successful.  For example, the ’scorpion’ robot featured in one of the video recordings below is the best built example of its type we’ve seen so far.

We’d like to now roll the project out to all S2 classes, but this is unrealistic because each kit may only be used by one team at a time.  As we only have enough kits to run one class at a time, and as we only see S2 classes for around thirty three hours during a session, we could only realistically run the project with around half the cohort: we have eleven classes in S2.  A further investment in an additional six kits, minimum, at around £180 each is therefore required.  Even then, it’d be tight to do it.

Yet another consideration is access to computers, to consult the build instructions and do the programming.  Each team requires a computer.  We don’t currently have enough laptop computers to be able to do the project out with our computer suite.  We only have one computer suite, and it is often difficult to timetable access.  For instance, our Advanced Higher Graphics class is being run in the Computing department this session, as we can’t timetable access to our own facilities: it’s a good job we run the course using free software, because we couldn’t afford licences for another suite of computers.

Also, we’d like to continue to run our informal robots club at lunch times, but this will require more dedicated kits.  On top of that, pupils in S1 classes have expressed an interest in doing this project, and Mr Stevenson has agreed to give class 1j the next available slot when the kits aren’t in use by an S2 class.  This does, however, depend on their teacher learning how to use Lego Mindstorms – I haven’t yet.  Yet another CPD opportunity.

Jim