On the second last day of term, our school held its sports carnival for Kindergarten to year 2 students. This is always a great day with running races as well as other favourites like sack races, egg and spoon, hula hoops and skipping! To top this off, we had our school disco in the evening. What a day!
Needless to say, when my class came in on Friday, they were a mixture of excited and exhausted at the same time. However we still had an incredibly productive day because we held a Bee Bot Olympics!
I just love Bee Bots. For those who have never seen them, Bee Bots are programmable robots designed for younger students. They support the development of computational thinking, problem solving and creativity and can be used in any subject area - they are limited only by your (or your students!) imagination.
Needless to say, when my class came in on Friday, they were a mixture of excited and exhausted at the same time. However we still had an incredibly productive day because we held a Bee Bot Olympics!
I just love Bee Bots. For those who have never seen them, Bee Bots are programmable robots designed for younger students. They support the development of computational thinking, problem solving and creativity and can be used in any subject area - they are limited only by your (or your students!) imagination.
So how did we have a Bee Bot Olympics? First of all, we discussed what we know about sports carnivals at school. Then, we watched a short highlights video from the London Olympics so they could see what types of events athletes participate in. My students were particularly interested in sports like fencing, archery and gymnastics, which they don't encounter as much as things like swimming and athletics. The students used their imagination to create squares for a Bee Bot mat that showed our Bee Bot participating in different Olympic events. They loved doing this!
Once all the squares were completed, we assembled them into one big Bee Bot Olympics mat for them to drive on. Again, if you are new to Bee Bots, it may help you to know that the squares are 15cm x 15cm, as this is the length of one Bee Bot step. Therefore one forwards step will take the Bee Bot forwards one square on the mat. I will be laminating our mat to make it more durable and to give the Bee Bot a nice, smooth drive.
The second part of our Olympics was to design uniforms for the Bee Bots. Each group of students chose a colour and a pattern with which to design a uniform. Once they had made them, they cut them out and performed a parade of Bee Bot athletes!
However the best part about the Bee Bot Olympics was getting the Bee Bots moving. Given that swimming, equestrian and judo were not really options, the students were set the challenge of designing a race track for the Bee Bot to drive around. I love this task as it is completely open-ended and the students have to engage in some deep thinking in order for their track to be feasible - because of course they have to be able to negotiate it themselves before anyone else has a go!
There is lots of trial and error, critical thinking and communication as the groups come up with their favoured design. They love making long tracks with lots of twists and turns, however these can sometimes prove quite complex to program the Bee Bot to complete. Rather than discourage them from creating these, I find that guiding them to break down their programming into small sections avoids it becoming too overwhelming for them. By tapping into the fact the Bee Bot remembers up to 40 commands until you clear them, the students can be successful with more complex designs, which of course they just love!
There is lots of trial and error, critical thinking and communication as the groups come up with their favoured design. They love making long tracks with lots of twists and turns, however these can sometimes prove quite complex to program the Bee Bot to complete. Rather than discourage them from creating these, I find that guiding them to break down their programming into small sections avoids it becoming too overwhelming for them. By tapping into the fact the Bee Bot remembers up to 40 commands until you clear them, the students can be successful with more complex designs, which of course they just love!
The final part of the race track component is for the students to record the programming solution to their track. I find that this can really help to create a link between the abstract programming and concrete movement of the Bee Bot. It also meant that the students were able to check if others had followed the correct steps for completing their track and isolate where they may have gone wrong.
We didn't get to spend quite as long testing as I would have liked, however the students were quite happy mastering their own tracks, of which they were rightly proud!
As you can see, we had a fantastic day, so much so that my class were disappointed when it was time to pack up to go home for 2 weeks of holidays!
I must confess, as great as it was, I wouldn't go that far as to say I was disappointed it was time for a break!
As you can see, we had a fantastic day, so much so that my class were disappointed when it was time to pack up to go home for 2 weeks of holidays!
I must confess, as great as it was, I wouldn't go that far as to say I was disappointed it was time for a break!