The highlight this week was the launch of Robotics to cap off the last two weeks of our 6-week Coding & Robotics Quest. The heroes have completed a 19-lesson course on Code.org to learn block coding. They also engaged in guide-led group “unplugged” challenges and games to learn more deeply about specific programming concepts like events, variables, conditionals, and how exactly the internet works.
This week the Discovery heroes put their newly learned coding skills to work through various mBot challenges. But first, they each had to build their mBot. It was a wonderful lesson in careful instruction reading, trouble-shooting, and trying again. Some challenges were: switching wires to the left and right motors so that the mBot would only more backwards, not forwards; mis-inputting the wires connecting the obstacle and line sensors; not using nuts on the screws attaching the wheels so that they loosened and blocked the mBot’s motion; and of course the learning curve of utilizing the MakeBlock software.
The children were encouraged to use three ways to problem solve:
- Compare their mBot to a friend’s that works – what’s different that needs to be corrected?
- Google for troubleshooting forums
- Re-review the assembly instructions and diagrams in detail
By the end of the session, all mBots were fully functional! The children also noticed a quirk that a single remote control used the same frequency for all the mBots, which was a pretty cool discovery!
Over the next few days, the heroes were given increasingly difficult mBot coding challenges. The first was to program their mBot to follow a track without touching the sides. The second was to follow a track and make lights and noises along the way. Their final challenge will be to program their mBot to follow a line, and also explore:
- What happens when an obstacle is in the way? what does the mBot do? Can they program it to go around obstacles and then return to the line?
- What happens if the line is thicker than the mBot (like a road)? How does it behave? Can they program it to follow a right or left edge?
All of this coding work is helping to prepare the Discovery Heroes for their final exhibition when they will engage in a friendly robotics coding challenges with their friends and family in attendance!
