Robotics Homeroom Ideas

[suewanninger]

The school that sponsors Team 1732 offers two forty-five minute 'specialty' homeroom periods each week. Students have the option of taking a study hall or signing up for a homeroom for the entire year. Topics are diverse, including student government, history, chess, table tennis, photography, movie-making, and many others. Activities vary, but for the most part they are very laid back and homeroom members can choose whether to participate, work on homework, etc. While some homerooms limit membership to 'club' or 'team' members and handle club business during homeroom time (i.e. only debate team members can be in debate homeroom), the robotics homeroom (in its second year) does not.

Last year, team members worked with the non-members to build Vex robots for a mini-competition, but everyone found that the 25-30 minutes they had to work on the bots just wasn't enough time and was very frustrating. So we're looking for activities that can be broken down into 25-30 minute increments the the team might offer to homeroom members to keep them interested (maybe enough to join the team!) All activities need to be organized and directed by the four or five team members in the homeroom, as the faculty moderator is simply there to supervise. Any ideas out there?

Thanks in advance for your help!