The Last Day of Robotics

We'd fallen into a comfortable routine where the students and I would design a challenge, and then divide up into two groups, and each group would attempt to build a robot to meet the challenge. The last few weeks have involved arms of various sorts, with increasing success. In a group of 8 regulars, we have about 4 kids who are really committed and spend the entire time working on their robots. The other four split their time between working on the robots and playing with Legos. They specialize in wings, the larger and fancier, the better, and strange combinations of wheels which can be rolled, bounced, flipped, and (when they think I'm not looking) shot off of ramps. At some point in the last few months, I decided that if kids want to come to robotics and just play with Legos, I can live with that. So I've chilled out about trying to get them to help, as long as they don't make it impossible for the others to work on their robots.

Anyway, today's challenge was to create a robot that would hold a plastic cube, drive from one line to another, and shoot the cube forward from just before the second line. I promised ice cream to whichever team threw the cube farthest past the line, while meeting all the requirements of the challenge. Later, when catapult after catapult fell apart during the throw, I added that the robot had to be able to complete the challenge successfully three times in a row with no intervening repairs.

Both teams completed the challenge, with two entirely different designs. One group finished really early and just played for the end of the period, while the other group - which was really a pair by then - worked feverishly right up to the last minute. Tomorrow, they're all meeting me after school and I'm buying ice creams for the whole team from the truck that pulls up outside the doors when school lets out.