Materials for a robotics class of 30

Technical Robotics Education and Curriculum
1

I am running a robotics class of approximately 30 students (two sections actually) and I have the opportunity to submit a wish-list for materials for the class. This is a class run during the school day, and is not directly related to FIRST or any other structured competition (yet).

The budget is not yet known, so I am considering all options, from the cheap, to the somewhat expensive. I’m looking for class sets of things, as I like to have no more than two students working in a group. I have experience with the Parallax Basic Stamp robots, and the Lego NXT system. I would like to hear from other educators, or even students, what types of materials/activities are successful in your classrooms for hands-on learning. Kits that come with instructional materials and guides (like the Parallax products) are definitely a good thing.

Also, if anyone can recommend a good book that is relevant to robotics, I would like to consider a class set of some reading material as well.

Thanks.

2

What age group? How long will the class run? What are your educational goals?

3

High school 10th through 12th grade. The educational goals are extensive. I’m not sure how to state them simply. At this point I’m still gathering ideas, as the course is new to this school.

4

For that age group, if you are thinking of a one-semester or one-year class, I’d use VEX: http://www.vexrobotics.com/vex-classroom-lab-kits.html.

  1. Versatile mechanical platform. Broad hardware choices.

  2. Multiple programming choices.

  3. Fully integrated classroom and after school program (you may not think they want an after-school competition program, but there is no reason to paint yourself into a corner)

  4. It all works together.

  5. Fully reusable.

  6. Multiple curricula choices, including one that is free with the kit.

  7. For this age group, VEX is a better choice than LEGO.

  8. Less expensive that other advanced kits (ones based on metal components and not snap-together bricks) with similar features.

5

I, too, like the Boe-Bot®robots and the training materials/educators forum Parallax provides.

6

Our school piloted a robotics curriculum last year with 2 classes, and expanded it to 4 this year.

I’ll start off by saying that this class primarily targets students who aren’t doing so well in other science class. The aim of the class is to help those students understand concepts of physics through robotics.

With that said, our primary tool is NXT kits, with NXC software instead of MindStorms. We’ve written some custom programs where they can change velocities, accelerations, etc. and combine that with some Vernier sensing hardware to help them see what velocity and acceleration actually is in relation to each other. They explore other concepts similarly.

We tried incorporating FTC into the class last year, but some of the stuff just seemed to high-level, so we had to abandon that. The plan is to try once again this year, and see how well it works out.

7

I am not a fan of the Boe-Bots; I’d rather use VEX.
Personal preference.

8

Sanddrag,

What skills/talents is a student supposed to possess/master before taking this class?

What skills are students supposed to master during the class?

How is successfully completing the classwork supposed to affect the students’ academic or social future?

I think having the answers those questions is necessary before we can help you choose the right tool to use while you do the job.

Blake

9

Personally, I taught the BoeBots kit and I disliked it. It is more of a electronics kit than a mechanical kit…
When I taught it, I felt very locked down. Over the course of 2 weeks (granted, 2 hours a day, 5 days a week) I pretty much stressed out all options I could think of for expansion.

VEX on the other hand, while I haven’t taught it I’ve played around with it. In my opinion it’s the perfect educational robotics kit for older kids (NXT is pretty good for younger kids, and also not too bad for highschoolers).

Kids rarely enjoy playing with wires. That’s pretty much what Boebots is. The part where most of the kids had most fun was the part where they had to build the robot, and with boebots, that’s 15 minutes for anyone who knows his way around a screwdriver!

10

My dad and I have run lots of LEGO Robotics classes and there are lots of great books out there. However most of those books are for the older LEGO RCX system.

If you know what you are doing you can run a pretty fun and educational robotics class using the book: LEGO Mindstorms NXT The Mayan Adventure by James Floyd Kelly. I must caution anyone who wants to use book because the book is not that well written. I would mainly use it as a template to make robot challenges. We used this book to run a semester long robotics program at one of our schools.

If you were to use the RCX system there are some great books out there. Some of my favorites are Definitive Guide to LEGO Mindstorms 2nd edition By Dave Baum and The Unofficial Guide to LEGO Mindstorms Robots by Jonathan B. Knudsen.

At my school they run engineering courses based on the BoeBot and Mindstorms NXT robot systems.
For the BoeBot Class we used the book that came in the BoeBot kit as our primary textbook and the challenges inside it as the labs. To incorporate some more “schoolish” learning he taught about the concepts of circuitry and programming needed to understand how the BoeBot worked.

The engineering department website for COC is:
http://www.canyons.edu/departments/ENGINEERING/
I do not know how much he has on it right now but I found the two engineering classes I have taken to be a blast. I would recommend you look at the Engineering (ENGR) 101 class. Even though it is not mentioned in the syllabus this class uses the NXT robotics platform for most of the class.

11

VEX Robotics has something that might fit your need called the “Classroom Competition.” All of this will seem very familiar to you…

I actually just did a writeup about it, because I feel so strongly about it:
http://jvengineering.blogspot.com/2010/09/classroom-competition-capturing-magic.html

Let me know if you have any questions.
-John

Edit:
I work for VEX Robotics, Inc. – I’m excited about the things we’re doing, proud of our product line and happy to discuss them further. I’m 100% partial, but I’m also highly educated on the current marketplace – this is important to us as we continue to strive to provide the best “bang for your buck” for our customers. Do your own research, this stuff speaks for itself.
/Edit

12

I started on the BoeBot platform when I was in highschool, and I feel that PBASIC was a horrible language to learn to program on. I spent too much time working around the shortcomings of the language (if-> goto, negative numbers, etc), and was therefore unable to spend my time on more important things. Additionally, it left me with a few awful programming patterns that bit me later in other languages. Unless BoeBot has replaced PBASIC, I strongly recommend against it.

Any of the languages that currently ship in FIRST related programs would make a good start point. I particularly like what the guys at Intelitek have done with EasyC, and I’d be remiss if I failed to plug LabVIEW Education Edition*.

  • Note: In the spirit of full disclosure, I work at NI in the LVEE group.
13

I have been out of the loop with Vex for a while, but it is certainly looking like a very attractive option. What I like most is there’s a lot of curriculum available for it from various sources.

Am I correct in saying everything is moving to Vexnet and the Cortex controller, if we wanted to actually compete? I wouldn’t want to have a lot of money tied up in PIC controllers that couldn’t be used in actual competition. I want to make sure the money is spent on new, up-to-date technologies that will be used for at least a couple years to come. However, I think the school has about 8 PIC kits already.

It seems like there are a a lot of differences between the PIC and the Cortex classroom kits, regarding quantity, pricing, and what’s included. It’s a little confusing at first read.

I’m wondering what the best way to structure this would be. I run a year-long course of two sections of approximately 30 students each. I would like students to be able to continue building and programming over several class periods, without their work being undone by the other section. I don’t think we’d have the funding for materials to have 60 people doing Vex simultaneously. So, I’m thinking it would need to be semester long, with one section getting Vex first semester, and the other section getting it second semester. Perhaps 10 Classroom Kits for a class of 30 would work.

Also, to do this well, is there more that is needed beyond the Classroom kits? What about the advanced sensors kit?

Does anyone have a comprehensive product/purchasing list for what they use in their structured Vex program for a large number of students?

Basically, I have a one-chance shot to do this purchase of materials for the entire school year. Now, it does have to be approved, but I want to make sure nothing useful gets left out, because there will be no chance to add things later.

14

At World Championships and perhaps one or two other very large events you would need VEXnet, but for classroom use and most local tournaments the 75MHz would still work. The majority of new classroom purchases are also 75MHz.

It seems like there are a a lot of differences between the PIC and the Cortex classroom kits, regarding quantity, pricing, and what’s included. It’s a little confusing at first read.

Send me a private message. I’d be glad to answer any questions you might have. The RECF helps teachers with this sort of question all the time.

15

I would have to ask what you want to do with your curriculum…
If your intent is to teach a class primarily based on robotics principles of sensors, feedback, programming and autonomous control there is not a doubt in my mind that
Lego NXT is the way to go… several good reasons…

  1. Relatively Cheap
  2. Easy to Store (compact…already organized…)
  3. Many ways to program… different levels of entry… NXT-G, Robot C, LabView…etc…

Downside - not a real great way to tele-operate… although the new PITSCO controller allows the robot to be operated with WIFI… through a computer an a standard joystick… although this would have to be worked out.

If you want a mechanical system… then VEX is probably best…

good reasons for VEX

  1. Relatively Cheap… not as inexpensive as Lego… but not far off for standard set…
  2. Lots of great mechanical pieces to play with…different types of gears… metal to cut

Downside… to get real value from VEX you will spend more money to get all of the neat extra pieces…
I would think that you would pay roughly 2x the total amount per kit in the end for VEX compared to NXT.

I think it depends on what you want to accomplish… if you want a real basic easy course with little programming but emphasis on mechanical systems… you will have to go with VEX although you CAN do this in LEGO but it is a little more difficult…

You can also do some great programming with VEX but you will need more sensors that are also extra.
NXT gives you sonar, light sensing, touch sensing all in the basic kit
Vex only has some touch sensors… you will need to purchase more…

I have used everything from plastic kits that I built myself that were simple wired robots to the EduKit (precursor to VEX) to LEGO and VEX to Boebots …other basic stamp stuff like SumoBots… just about everything…

Last year we did a lunar rover in our aerospace engineering class… we used a NXT brain…and PITSCO and VEX components… we figured out how to use and interface everything… with some HITechnic parts thrown in and stuff we fabricated ourselves…I

In my mind… there is simply no bigger bang for the buck than the Lego NXT set…
It is easy to store…easy to use…easy to transport… can be used with a huge variety of ages…and can be expanded to do some incredible things… extenders to the kit combined with either the VEX or PITSCO kits can do some amazing things…

By the way I have about 30 VEX kits and a huge stockpile of parts…
I also have about 32 NXT kits…
and 4 PITSCO kits… and tons of other stuff…

If someone wants me to do a robotics class though… I ALWAYS pull out the LEGO
I can count on it…kids like it… they learn

That said … the learning will come from how YOU use whatever you decide on…

Good luck!!

16

Not to derail this thread, but I feel the need for some disclosure which I am not seeing.

While I personally think Vex is a great product and that IFI is a great company, if you happen to work for them… please disclose that in posts advocating someone to spend money on that program over others here on Chief Delphi. The way some of the responses are worded from those with financial ties to Vex, I don’t see how the OP (or anyone new to Chief Delphi) would be able to identify them from the non-biased posts.
This is simple courtesy and keeps the information here trustworthy.

See the simple disclaimer in EricVanWyk’s post in this thread as an example.

17

For what it’s worth I don’t work for anyone other than my school system and receive no monetary or other compensation from VEX-LEGO-PITSCO etc…

That being said… if they would like to give me stuff and money (expecially money…) I would be happy to accept that… and then to change this post…

18

Wasn’t directed at you, Bob.

19

Not to derail this thread, but I feel the need for some disclosure which I am not seeing.

While I personally think Vex is a great product and that IFI is a great company, if you happen to work for them… please disclose that in posts advocating someone to spend money on that program over others here on Chief Delphi. The way some of the responses are worded from those with financial ties to Vex, I don’t see how the OP (or anyone new to Chief Delphi) would be able to identify them from the non-biased posts.
This is simple courtesy and keeps the information here trustworthy.

… says they guy with no discernible name or identity in his post.

Just so we are clear, I am not only the president of VEX Robotics, I am also a client …

And by the way, if it was directed at Rick Tyler then you are way off. He does not work for IFI or VEX Robotics or any other company that profits from the sale of VEX Robotics.

Paul

20

Thank you to everyone who has given input so far. This has given me some good ideas of where to go from here. I agree that Vex seems to be an easy to teach and easy to learn, and highly engaging system. I like what’s included, but I also like the more advanced parts, which of course cost more. I have been informed that I may not receive any materials at all for this school year, but I’ll still be putting a budget together. We’ll see how it turns out.

If anyone else still had ideas of useful kits/lessons, etc, please do feel free to share.