Friday, February 27, 2015

Weekly Wrap-up: Robots

This week, we explored one of Monkey's big interests-Robots!

There's tons of books at the library about Robots, but we picked these:
He wrote a 4 page story about a man discovering a robot lab full of all kinds of robots and he work on making his own robot using Mindstorms, inspired by watching Battlebot robots on YouTube:


As much as he loves Legos, he doesn't play with the Lego Mindstorms much. He's made a few simple robots, but I think he gets frustrated with the sensors being glitchy and programming that takes him a while to understand. He wants to build a 'REAL' robot. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do that and it seems pretty unrealistic, when you think about supplies needed and expertise needed for wiring and programming.

We were supposed to check out a new homeschool class about robotics this week, but it got cancelled last minute, so we will have to wait until it is rescheduled. I'm not sure about driving 40 minutes for a class...but we'll see whether he likes it or not. If it's something where he can really build some robots, it might be worth it!
Weekly Wrap-Up

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Chris · 523 weeks ago

Snap circuits makes a good electronic kits that depending on the version can make up to 750 projects.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002AHQWS/

There is also Hour of Code that has kid oriented programming courses. My two older ones (Grade 5 and Grade 7) are doing one on Javascript.
https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/hour-of-cod...

As for actually building robots I would sell him on the above as skill that he needs to actually build a robot. In a couple of years he can search for Aurdino robot kit. The Aurdino is the brains of the robot. I would have him research it and tell you what he needs. Double check that it has all the components. Cheap frequently means it is missing components which is good in that you can customize but a trap for beginners. I might give it a try this summer. I have an Aurdino but I need a lot more parts to make a robot.
My recent post Weekly Wrap up: New Semester New Schedule
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E@biculturalHS · 523 weeks ago

Thanks for the ideas! We've got snap circuits (which he occasionally uses)and he's currently doing a Javascript course from codecademy.org . I keep telling him he needs to learn these things (electric circuits, programming) before he can build a "real" robot...he's just so eager! I'll have to check out Aurdino. I'm a little worried that I'll get in over my head and won't know how to guide him!
My recent post Weekly Wrap-up: Robots

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