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Unread 19-11-2014, 13:09
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Re: Middle School Mindstorms Class Help

Wow, thanks everyone for your suggestions! I really had a good time reading them!

OK it seems that the "overarching" idea that you are all saying is that I should work up, meaning start simple and get more complex. To answer a few of your questions:

Quote:
Are you using the LEGO Mindstorm, or the Mindstrom EV3.
We are using EV3 because they don't sell NXT anymore...

Quote:
Are you only concerned about programming or the overall construction and programming?
Well, both programming and construction, but I find that teaching construction is easier through having the kids learn through trial and error. Programming is something you need to teach actively rather than passively. Don't you agree?

Quote:
Carnegie Mellon has offered high quality NXT-based teaching curriculum for many years now. They now offer EV3-based curriculum too.
Yup, yup I've seen this curriculum and tried it the first couple of classes, but unfortunately, the kids are not really behaved enough to follow said curriculum... Order is difficult because most of these kids suffer from ADD/ADHD.

Lastly, I came up with this idea last night as I was falling asleep:
STEP 1: Teach programming
STEP 2: Build a single robot for the kids myself and have them all program it in teams
STEP 3: Create a single program and have the kids build a robot around that program
STEP 4: Wrap it all up by having the kids make a robot from scratch!

We barely have any money and the nearest FTC team was just started this year so we really can't help us with providing us with a past mat.

Again thanks for all your help looking forward to some more suggestions and help!
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