Kids have grown up with images of robots. I want them to experience making and programming one. Over the last five years, I have amassed a large enough collection of Mindstorms RCX v.1 robotics for a whole class project but I need to keep the controller brick full of fresh batteries!
My students are full of ideas about what robots are, but at the same time they have no idea what a gear is!
They know robots can act autonomously, but don't realize they are needed to make that possible with programming. In their busy days filled with reading and math, the hands on part of our world gets short changed. Their experiences with technology is as a consumer, not a creator.
I use Legos with all classes already, and the kids feel so empowered when they realize they can make something that DOES something.
When we first use string snapped into bricks and then twisted to create energy storage which powers a rotating Lego it is as if they had just discovered a new world. So you should have seen their eyes light up when they heard we have a chance of doing robotics this year!
Many of my students are from backgrounds where feeling empowered is not the norm. I want them to see a way out.
My Project
I have enough of the RCX v.1 Mindstorms so a whole class, if they partner up, could build a robotic project and then program it. I am an art teacher so my lesson will ask them to invent something that will be useful in an art class. I am imagining I might see a program to create a drawing with a marker attached to the back of a vehicle, something that makes prints perhaps, or carries a crayon set for you...but who knows!!?? My students need batteries and a battery charger.
I want them to learn that all the cool tech stuff in the world is made by people like themselves, who have an idea, and who have learned how to bring it to fruition.
I show the ads from YouTube that ask who will be tomorrow's engineers. I am hoping that some of my students will realize that they could be!
Art budgets have gone down and prices of things gone up, so without outside support this kind of project is really, really hard to pull off.
My students need to see they have a place in the future. These great eneloop batteries will last a very, very long time and power up our robots and the student's ideas for many years.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Craib and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
