The Sphero robots arrived March 17th and we wasted no time getting our hands on the little robots. The project is documented below in the timeline of events.
PROJECT TIMELINE
- March 2, 2016 – Submitted Coding Project with DonorsChoose.org
- March 2, 2016 – Coding Project approved and posted
- March 11, 2016 – Received notice that my Coding Project had been fully funded
- March 14, 2016 – Submitted my Thank You notes
- March 15, 2016 – Robots have shipped
- March 16, 2016 – Covers have shipped
- March 17, 2016 – Received robots
- March 18, 2016 – Received covers for robots
- Week 1) March 21-25, 2016 – Met with students to tell them about the project and what our two donors have made possible for them. Allowed students to discover the sample programs, drive robots freely through mazes, and begin writing code using Lightning Lab for the robot to travel in a square while performing an action at every corner.
- March 28-April 1 – SPRING BREAK
- Week 2) April 4-8, 2016 – Pull students during computer time to refresh themselves with the program samples and driving freely. Continue working on programming the Sphero with Lightning Lab to travel in a square with actions at every corner. Send home Photo Permission Slips so I can upload 6 photos for our generous donors. Students are to begin writing hand written thank you letters due Friday, April 29th.
- Week 3) April 11-15, 2016 – Students have guidance and Career Day on the 14th. Pull all students on Friday and talk about the Chariot Race and photo permission forms. Give students the Chariot Design Brief for building a chariot out of recycled materials. Show videos and pictures about the upcoming project. They will be using the Tickle app for the Chariot Race.
- Week 4) April 18-22, 2016 – Students will continue programming the Sphero robot using the Tickle app.
- Week 5) April 25-29, 2016 – Students will write proper thank you letters to our generous donors. All letters will be mailed to donorschoose.org as part of the project agreement.
- Week 6) May 2-6, 2016 – Students will bring in their hand made chariots for the Sphero robots and race them manually and by program without having a human driver.
Students will work on programming the Sphero robots using Lightning Lab or the Tickle app and also write their thank you letters during the month of April. With SOL testing in May, the project for this school year will close May 6, 2016.
When you think of programmable robots you likely think of technology but did you know that Bee Bots are more than that?
grids, graphs, or maps. The link below is an online example of how one would program the Bee Bot to move around a grid. Give it a try and see what you think.