I was recently contacted by people in my district who are interested in creating a district wide curriculum for robotics both in the middle and high school levels. I was given this information on Friday and have till Monday to have a proposal done (exciting, I know).
Here is what I am proposing. Please provide comments:
I am proposing a two pronged system: Curricular and Competitive.
On the one hand, I cannot find a good High School FIRST robotics based curriculum. With that in mind, I am proposing using Carnegie Melon’s VEX Robotics Curriculum for High School and their NeXT Curriculum for Middle School. Along with this, I am proposing that we host a district wide Middle and High School competition using VEX and NeXT during the Spring Semester.
On the other hand, I believe in FIRST and their ability to inspire above most other competitive systems. With that in mind, I want to propose that we set up out-of-class teams with FLL in the Middle School level and FTC in the High School Level. Schools that want to go forward and engage a FRC team can do so, but I don’t think that the district will be able to fund that expense.
None of the schools in our area are able to afford any kind of robotics team so our team is a regional one which draws from multiple schools. The schools in our area don’t support technology so we don’t get any funding from them. In your case depending on the amount of funding it might be easier to just have district FIRST teams.
I would definitely recommend getting in contact with CTEF which was founded by Krunch’s former coach Paul Wahnish and basically is a Project Lead the Way curriculum coupled with FRC and summer internships for high schools student as well as the PLTW gateway program, which is based around vex, for middle school.
I know that the program had a huge impact on me as well as many of my friends.
We need lots more information about the circumstances and objectives. You could start with demographics about the school district, the presence of alternative curricular/extracurricular activities, the labour situation in the schools, the funding available, the existing curriculum (especially deficiencies and motivation for making these changes), the school culture (e.g. attitudes toward competitive teams that aren’t the football team :rolleyes:), who’s spearheading the proposal (and how much political clout they have), the amount of expertise available in the school and community, etc…
Any particular reason to incorporate all of those programs? Each will have some amount of overhead that will be required to start up. Also, given that some programs overlap in focus, you might not be able to sustain critical masses of interested students if you’re running both simultaneously. (FTC and VRC, for example.)
Well, I dont all the info at hand. Funding will be provided by a large organization that is making a significant contribution to fund a systemy wide stem project. It will be implemented in approximately eight highschools, and perhaps ten to fifteen middle schools. We are an urban system with approximately eighty percent in fee our reduced lunch. I was contacted because of my involvement with first and because I am developing a program for the school that I reach at already. We’ve chosen the Carnegie Melon curriculum because of how modular it is.School culture varies. Other questions?
Our district actually has a 3 tiered system. While there is no “official class” at the elementary level, All of our feeder school have “robotics clubs” that use the NXT bricks to learn stuff, and one of them has an official FLL team.
Our middle school has a “Technology Career” class where they learn some basic electronics(servos and whatnot), and they construct miniature machines. They participate in the BEST competition.
Our high school is really layered.
Computer Science1 - Uses NXTs for part of the year
Computer Science2 - Uses FTC for part of the year
Robotics1 - Uses VEX & Participates in BEST
Robotics2 - Uses VEX & Participates in BEST
Robotics3 - Uses VEX & Participates in BEST
Robotics4 - Uses VEX & Participates in BEST
And then everyone who wants to participates in FTC.
I know it’s late. Please consider the Boy Scouts of America Robotics Merit Badge Book. Need to purchase at a scout store (council store). Please see attached.
As a teacher who was tasked with something similar, I think you’re on the right track, assuming they have the funding for it. I think it’s silly how quickly they want you to decide all this, but sometimes funds need to be spent right away.
I used Carnegie Melon’s VEX Robotics Curriculum as a curriculum for a summer school class in DCPS and it is very well put together and a great starting place.
