Robotics, Session 2

I am too tired to adequately express my excitement about robotics. Our team is up to 17 members, 15 smart, feisty boys and 2 sixth grade girls (not particularly feisty, but really smart, and one of them did First Lego League at her elementary school). We have a good mix of kids from each grade in our school, which means we have some kids who are probably more abstract thinkers because they are older, but we also have kids who will be back next year and the year after. And the only ones with prior robotics experience are the sixth graders, so I think when we begin learning how to program and build robots, the older kids will find themselves learning from the younger, and that will be good for everyone.

We started with a group meeting, everyone said their name, grade, and one thing they are looking forward to in robotics. Answers ranged from having fun to liking technology to winning the competition to making robots do cool things. Then I briefly summarized the way the program works for the new students, and we went to work building more of the props for the playing field. We are bogged down in the biggest building project of them all: the ship. We still need to finish the dolphin cage and the shipping container and the pipeline, too. The kids say we are missing pieces of the pipeline. I suspect they will turn up as we finish other things and the Lego storage box empties. One group of kids went to work installing Robolab on some laptops. Unfortunately, that was a very slow process and we really only got it installed on one laptop. They had a more boring job but it was some of the more patient kids tending the installation process, so they didn't complain much. I stressed how important it was to get the program on the computers. We also ran into some installation problems because our computers have student, teacher, and administrative accounts, and to fully install Robolab required the admin password, and it wouldn't accept what I thought was the password. So that was mystifying and frustrating.

Anyway, I think the kids had fun. I didn't exactly have fun, but I think that was just because the sheer number of kids was overwhelming. I will devise some systems to streamline things and that should help. I do enjoy those moments when the room is really chaotic at first glance, but upon a closer look, everyone is engaged in an important task.

We had a guest, someone who might film robotics for a documentary. He was awesome and helped out and talked to kids as they worked.... it is so much better to have a second adult in the room. What was interesting was that one of my sixth graders went right up to our guest and asked him some questions and then basically stuck by his side for all of snack time. It always amazes me how much certain kids - and all kids, really - crave positive attention from adults.

Next Thursday, when I will likely be on my own, is going to be really challenging. Systems, systems, systems. Hopefully my lunchtime helpers can finish the boat by then.