Summer SAVY 2018: Session 6, Day 3 – Programming and Robotics (Rising 3rd/4th)
Dear Parents,
Happy Wednesday! The week is flying by and the students are having a blast. We can’t wait to show all the parents how hard we have been working on our robots and programs. We spent the morning reviewing vocabulary again, and we added a few new words including: define, program, sequencings, and condition. We played a game of Kahoot (in bigger teams to work on cooperation and compromise) to practice our old and new vocabulary.
Later on, we played a card game where students created code using if/else conditionals to make up a dance! Not only did the students get to practice reading through code blocks with the conditionals, they got out some of their wiggles by doing a cool robot dance depending on what card they picked!
Afterwards, we worked with our Sphero robots and got them to dance! The students used movement blocks, spin blocks, used the motors, added words and music, and used colors to create wild dancing robots. We did this to get more familiar with the Sphero app on the ipads and also to get the students thinking more creatively with the robots, which will help with our final projects. Parents, ask your children how this program went! How did their robot “dance”? What were any difficulties? Any parts of the app that they still have trouble with?
Before lunch, we went on a field trip to an engineering building to visit one of my colleagues in his lab. He did an excellent job explaining how he uses computer science, robots, and programming to create new tools for the medical field. He showed the students how his lab is creating a smaller and more autonomous endoscope for doctors to use. He explained how he uses conditionals in his code for the robot and also magnets. The students had excellent questions for him regarding the robot and his field of work. Parents, I encourage you to ask about the field trip and what your children learned! How do robots and medicine go together? What are some challenges? What are the advantages of using robots in the medical field?
Finally, after lunch, we spent the last half of the afternoon in the computer lab to learn about variables and their place in real life and programming. The students have gotten more and more confident in their coding abilities and they are able to apply what they learn at code.org and to the Sphero robots.
Parents, prompt your children to think about a project idea they want to do with what they have learned so far. We are looking forward to more learning and exploring with the students tomorrow!
Thank you,
Mr. Hamid and Miss Ashanti
Sphero Photos
Field Trip Photos
