Engineering/Robotics class in High School

[mathking]

I would like to second Sean's comments about having a lot of the needed equipment. PLTW is expensive, but we did not find it to be more expensive than any of the other established programs we examined. This is probably particularly true for a school that already has an FRC team, since much of the expensive equipment is the same.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by lcoreyl

I am also looking to see what is out there for curriculum that directly relates to USFIRST. I will look at the posts here so far, but has anyone heard about 1717? Amir's kickoff mentioned something about being a model and having his integrated curriculum available, but I've had no luck finding it or contacting someone from the team. Anyone else hear of where we could find this or how to contact Amir Abo-Shaeer (or another good contact for 1717)?

Team 1717 is from Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy, Goleta, CA.

You might try searching the CD members list (orange bar at the top of the page) using the advanced search for team 1717. There are at least a couple of mentors in that listing. Some of them might not have been on in a while, but at least one was on not terribly long ago.

You could also go to the FIRST website, click the "Events and teams locator" blue box on the right side of the page, and search for FRC teams in California. From there, you should be able to find their number, click it to get to their team page, and follow the link to their website.

[holygrail]

I am a teacher and FRC coach at a small private school and we have neither the money, nor the room for Project Lead the Way. I am considering trying to really boost the engineering curriculum in our school over the coming years and I am starting by running a VEX robotics elective.

The bots are small enough that you can have several small teams each build a bot and have in-class competitions. You can still get pretty deep into the engineering and design aspects including CAD, and it makes it fun because you can always have them preparing for a competition.

My class is structured around the VEX boot camp at first where we will have three separate in-class mini competitions. Competition 1 is focused mostly on the mechanical aspects of building. Competition 2 is focused on programming including autonomous movement and sensors. Competition 3 is a free build where I just tell them about the game and it is up to them to design a winning robot. We will probably have 8 or 9 bots in the competition. I try to run the competitions as FIRST-like as possible in order to make it a good prep for students to join up with our FRC team afterward.

If you are interested in something like this and want more info, just e-mail me at gavin.wood@barstowschool.org

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by holygrail

(...)
My class is structured around the VEX boot camp at first where we will have three separate in-class mini competitions. Competition 1 is focused mostly on the mechanical aspects of building. Competition 2 is focused on programming including autonomous movement and sensors. Competition 3 is a free build where I just tell them about the game and it is up to them to design a winning robot. We will probably have 8 or 9 bots in the competition. I try to run the competitions as FIRST-like as possible in order to make it a good prep for students to join up with our FRC team afterward.

If you are interested in something like this and want more info, just e-mail me at gavin.wood@barstowschool.org

You can also take your teams to a local VEX Robotics Competition event in Kansas City: http://robotevents.com/robot-competi...etition-1.html.

[Jacob Paikoff]

I went to East Lake High School in Tarpon Springs, Florida and starting my freshman year of high school, 2006-07, we began running a hybrid PLTW-CTEF program.

CTEF, otherwise known as Career Tech Education Foundation, was founded by 79's former coach Paul Wahnish and the program which uses the PLTW curriculum along with internships for the high school students at local engineering companies, is now in about 5 or 6 schools throughout Florida.

For new info go to http://www.careertechedfoundation.org/.