Junior Botball

My colleague and I are in our second year of offering Junior Botball after school for students. Last year, we received a grant through the Idaho STEM Action Center that provided training and robots. We started working with students back in September. We have several 3rd grade students, one 5th grade, and two 6th grade. We have only four girls out of the 16 students participating.

This year, we had students stay for two hours after school on one day rather than doing two days a week for an hour after school.  It makes for long days for the teachers and students, but the students are able to complete more programming with less setup and cleanup time. 

We will wrap up the learning process on December 4 with a culminating challenge. Emmett Middle School will be joining us with their students who are participating in Junior Botball. We will have pizza and water for attendees and celebrate all the students' hard work.

In late January or early February, we will start up again with students that are ready to commit to making plans for GCER in the summer of 2018. We will work to further develop students' programming skills and begin fund raising to help with the cost of the trip.

I would recommend Junior Botball for any student. It is amazing what students can do while coding in C++. They really begin to understand the importance of spelling, formatting, critical thinking, and problem solving. It is so much fun to be a part of and watch the growth.

Junior Botball Possibility

A few students at our school have the possibility to participate in the Global Conference on Educational Robotics in two ways. First, students will be able to participate in the International Botball Tournament where they will complete programming challenges. Secondly, they may be able to present on the use of the Botball Wallaby in the school’s NASA project. http://bit.ly/2lompcI

Conference information:

Everyone interested in robotics and STEM education is encouraged to attend the conference! Each year students, educators, enthusiasts, and professionals from across the world gather at the Global Conference on Educational Robotics to connect with peers, discuss technology-related ideas, and cheer on their favorite teams during two exciting autonomous robot tournaments.  http://new.gcer.net/events/

The qualifying team has the potential to receive grant funding from the Idaho STEM Action Center to offset travel costs and will seek additional funding opportunities as needed.

In order to qualify, the participating students will need to:

1.      Complete Junior Botball Challenges at Galileo’s STEM Night, March 2, 5:00-7:00 pm

2.      Assist with the school’s NASA project as programming consultants or programmers (During school hours)

3.      Complete Junior Botball Challenges at Youth Appreciation Day in Emmett, ID, April 29 (More details to follow)

Junior Botball Challenge Training

I attended the Junior Botball Challenge Training in Boise with a colleague yesterday.  We were attending this training as part of a grant through the Idaho STEM Action Center (https://stem.idaho.gov/).  The grant covered our time and travel to the training, seven robotics kits, seven sets of mats, and the curriculum resources for students to learn C programming while completing robotics challenges.  I had no previous knowledge of the Junior Botball Challenge but was thoroughly impressed by the robotics kits and the learning goals for the students.  In addition, the ease of use as an educator with the program and the robot itself was great for beginners but also could challenge more experienced users.

 

 

During the first part of the training, we built our first robot.  The intention of the Junior Botball Challenge (https://www.juniorbotballchallenge.org/) is to focus on students learning to program using C language and receiving the immediate feedback from the hands-on use of a robot.  While we built our robot, students will typically only by using pre-built robots and add on parts to perform the necessary task for various challenges.  Two things struck me about the program.  I like both the emphasis on programming and using C language instead of a drag and drop (GUI) interface.

   

I look forward to getting started with students, which will be after the next five robots are built.