View Single Post
  #12   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 30-03-2015, 09:39
Rebecca Wasmer's Avatar
Rebecca Wasmer Rebecca Wasmer is offline
FIRST Senior Mentor - Western NY
no team
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Rookie Year: 2009
Location: Alden, NY
Posts: 17
Rebecca Wasmer has a spectacular aura aboutRebecca Wasmer has a spectacular aura about
Re: VEX EDR or Lego EV3 for high school robotics elective?

Currently, I am working with a school district just getting their foot in the door as far as robotics is concerned. I had them purchase quite a few EV3 kits because they are looking to incorporate them at all levels of their school district and are also looking into starting FLL teams. I have found that the high school students I am currently working with are loving the EV3s because of their versatility and with the current number of tutorials already available, they were open a kit and build a robot within their first class period. They weren't intimidated by their lack of experience and were able to just jump right in. (A few did admit to me that they were skeptical that they would like it at first, but now they're hooked) We're set to have a Sumo-bot competition at the end of the year, now, with different awards for different types of designs.

That being said, I ran an FTC team a few years ago and we used the Tetrix system and I grew up in a high school that had VEX components available and that were used in the "robotics" class offered there.

With a mix of students that diverse, it's hard to find a system that meets all of their needs, but I would have to agree with everyone here that VEX or FTC would be the way you want to go. From what I have been hearing about the route FTC is taking, you might be able to entice some kids into learning more programming through that because if it is on the Android platform, then you can always use the "then you can make apps!" as a way to draw kids in.

A bit of your decision should also be based on how much programming/coding you want to the students to learn. With the EV3 systems it is all block based and pretty simple to use regardless of how much math a student has done or how good they are at it. (I have some first grade students currently programming EV3s) With FTC they are moving to Java programming this year. I'm not as familiar with VEX, but what I did in high school was mostly plug and play, which can be nice when you want to focus more on robust design and the physical aspects of robotics rather than the software end.

Those are just my thoughts on the matter. I'm sorry if it's a bit of a ramble. Hopefully this is helpful, I'm just getting my foot in the door with this whole teaching thing. Good luck!
__________________
FIRST Senior Mentor
Computer Engineering B.S.
FRC 340 Alumni