Innovation & Invention is a new Vex-based course at Lower Merion High School. The course is the 1-semester "capstone" course of the Technology Education department.
Far left: Mark Piotrowski, Technology Education teacher and Technology and Engineering Club head advisor
Far right: Rich Kressly, English teacher, FIRST Team 1712 (Dawgma) head mentor
Mr. Piotrowski and Mr. Kressly developed the curriculum for the course.
Below is the field for the first project of the year: Whiffle Wars. (Game explained in next photos.) Robots were built by groups of 2 students over a few weeks. The project involved learning Vex basics and documentation in a design notebook. Teams were limited to using the starter kits and certain numbers of additional parts.
Awesome job! Congrats to all who made this happen. It is great to see Dawgma and Lower Merion embracing Vex and incorporating it into the school curriculum.
Way to go! {looks like you have some fun robots there, too}
Thanks Mr. Moe!
In the end, team 3 (my team, bottom on left side), won the contest. We were a high goal scoring bot, the only one that worked (shooting) in the class.
We are now in the second half of the class, and the new challenge has to do with the removal of IED (improvised explosive devices). All six teams work together to effectively and quickly remove the 6 “bombs” from the field and try to complete the entire operation in under 45 minutes. More info and pictures will be posted of this challenge.
long overdue update on LM’s I&I course …
both challenges “Wiffle War” and “IED Cleanup” were sucessfully used in both semesters. The designs for IED Cleanup improved dramatically in the second semester. Here’s a video of successful removal of one IED that was shot earlier today: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3547260733346320301
