Definitely looks promising. Keep us posted and good luck! Vern
On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 11:09 AM, Blake Elias <blakeel...@gmail.com> wrote: > Right now we're leaning towards the Adventure Bot: > > http://custobots.com/products/adventure-bot-rs005 > > It's quite a bit cheaper at $80. Though it doesn't have nearly as > many sensors, they'll still be able to do some cool things. And we > can afford more of them so the kids can work in smaller groups. With > the small amount of time we have to teach, I'm not sure we'd even get > a chance to use the Scribbler's additional capabilities like camera > processing. > > Once they see the basics on the small robot, they'll be able to play a > little bit with the larger ones we build for the competition, which > weigh 120 lbs and have more functions. Those just aren't great > teaching tools in the beginning because they take up more space and we > don't have enough of them for kids to work in groups of 1-3. > > Blake Elias > > > > On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 1:16 AM, Vern Ceder <vce...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi Blake, > > > > On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Blake Elias <blakeel...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> > >> My high school competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition. Every year > >> we have to teach new members basic robotics and programming concepts, > >> to get them excited and prepared for the heat of competition. Those > >> who have the patience stay with it and have a great time, but we > >> always lose a bunch of people partly because the lessons are not very > >> interesting or useful. I believe the solution is to teach with small > >> robots, instead of just writing on the board and doing "hello > >> world"-type programs. > > > > That was exactly the same conclusion we came to, although at our school > the > > competition uses Vexx components and is designed by local engineers. And > > we've had some success following the approach you suggest. > > > >> > >> Vern, I was very inspired by your PyCon talk on teaching programming > >> with the Scribbler. I know people have had success with it, it looks > > > > I'm glad to hear that, I'm going to give essentially the same talk at > ISTE > > on Monday (thanks to the Python Software Foundation board for supporting > > that trip financially!), and I'll report back if I get any interesting > > feedback. > >> > >> like a great robot to teach with. For our budget however, getting a > >> bunch of these would be a stretch (I think the scribbler + fluke board > >> combo costs $140 -- is this correct?). You do need the Fluke board > >> unless you want to program it in BASIC Stamp or their GUI, right? > > > > You are pretty much right on all counts, except that the Scribbler/Fluke > > combo is more like $180. Depending on numbers it still might be worth it > to > > work in teams of 2-4, although that does have its downside. The scribbler > > isn't perfect, but it's pretty darned good for the cost. > > Cheers and good luck (and by all means, keep us posted). > > Vern > >> > >> I've seen some cheaper mini-robots but I'm not sure if they're any > >> good. Does anyone have suggestions? > >> > >> > >> Thanks, > >> Blake Elias > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Edu-sig mailing list > >> Edu-sig@python.org > >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > > > > > > > -- > > Vern Ceder > > vce...@gmail.com, vce...@dogsinmotion.com > > The Quick Python Book, 2nd Ed - http://bit.ly/bRsWDW > > > > > > > -- Vern Ceder vce...@gmail.com, vce...@dogsinmotion.com The Quick Python Book, 2nd Ed - http://bit.ly/bRsWDW
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