Robotics Curriculum

[Ken Loyd]

My school district is interested in starting a magnet high school based upon FIRST Robotics. Does anyone know of robotic curriculums in use anywhere. I have heard that the San Jose City Schools are using one. Is this true?

Ken Loyd

[Ashley Weed]

How do you ever get a school board interested in doing something like that? Our school won't even sponsor a team.

[Brandon Martus]

Check the white papers of this site.
Chief Delphi has a FIRST class, and the curriculum is in there, I believe.

[dlavery]

Contact Ken Berry at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (email: Kenneth.S.Berry@jpl.nasa.gov). He is leading a project called "RoboEducators" that is developing a high school robotics curriculum package that is planned to soon go state-wide in California.

-dave

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"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
- Abraham Lincoln

[Aaron Lussier]

Our school to get people involved with FIRST, says they are going to start a curriculim(spelling?) When in actually half way through the six weeks they said that doing FIRST in our school is now going to count as a creditied course. Some people may think that is good but it also comes with its draw backs now that it is credited DURING the six weeks we must complete 4 hours of mandantory study hours per week and we have to mantain a C- or better average with is not the part I'm mad about it's the fact that the school all of a sudden comes and takes over the team gives us advisors who don't know (explitive deleted) about FIRST and expect them to run the team.

[Jnadke]

Our Engineering Charter High School for next year is basically based upon the accomplishments in FIRST. There will actually be a FIRST class (1st sem - principles of FIRST, 2nd sem - build, competitions).

MIT provides a alot of class information online due to their new sharing program... That's where most of the classes in the charter school were created from...

[mtaman02]

if california is going to make this a curriculum does that mean other states will follow to. Its not a bad idea to make it a curriculum and like most of you had said. it has its drawbakcs. maintaining a certain grade fine but don't try to take over something you know nothing about.

[Stephanie]

I am a student on team 668, at Pioneer high school, San Jose Unified School District, San Jose, CA. We do not have a *magnet school* based on FIRST, but we do have science and technology magnet schools. Our teams are however sponsored by the district (we recieve *some* money for being a team). At my school (I dont' know about the others) we recieve science credits for being in robotics, although it isn't really run like a class. If you have questions, you can ask me, but I can also put you in contact with our coach and vice principal. They would be better able to help you

also, some other SJUSD teams are 256, 258, 581, 604.
other teams in San Jose (*not* SJUSD) are 255 and 409

~Stephanie

[Jon Lawton]

Originally posted by Stephanie
... At my school (I dont' know about the others) we recieve science credits for being in robotics, although it isn't really run like a class. ...

It isn't run like a "class" *YET*. There is a strong push on the teacher-side to make our team more formal than I'd like to see happen, however. Yes, everyone but me gets science credits (San Jose Unified can't figure out how to deal with a student at one school taking classes at another, even though I've seen their computer system do it. I'm graduating High School early, anyhow.) I'm rather sick of hearing our adult leader *constantly* reminding us that **THIS IS A CLASS YOU GET A GRADE NOT EVERYONE GETS AN A**. It's almost as bad as hearing the adults yell at eachother. Yes, I'm somewhat bitter over this.

Some schools have managed to do this kind of stuff in a decent fashon, I believe. If you are planning on doing somthing similar, it sounds like a good deal, but *watch out*. It's *easy* for the administrivia to take over more than you're comfortable with. Just My Opinion.

[nwagers]

I don't think robotics should be run like a class at all. I also believe that there shouldn't be too much teacher involvement either. The team should be run on almost entirely a student leader. FIRST is about much more than building a machine to play a game, it is about leadership, responsibility, and teamwork. All of which are best achieved with a student-run team. Don't get me wrong though, mentors play a very important role. What I have found works very well is that when you need something done that a student can't quite handle on their own, take 1 or 2 students and have a mentor work with them personally. This not only allows for a good learning environment but you also build strong relationships with your mentors, which is key in a good team.