Arts & Bots

The 7^th and 8^th grade students at St Philip School in Crafton, PA used the Arts and Bots program to create simple craft projects which they animated using the Hummingbird kits and visual programming software. 

Arts and Bots was the perfect program for our project which was a simple introduction to robots and programming. Objectives were to learn what components are needed to create and program a robot and to practice the step-by-step thought process used in programming. The students viewed the examples and excellent tutorials on the Arts and Bots Website, created craft creatures, and set out to plan which sensors, LEDs and outputs could be used to fit their bot’s “personality” and function.  Although time restrictions kept most projects at a simple level, learning objectives were met by every student and enthusiasm and interest remained high throughout the project. Ease of use of the Hummingbird kit and the drag and drop function of the visual programming software kept success within every student’s reach. Arts and Bots is a fabulous program – even the “reluctant techies” loved it!

Doug Force's, math teacher at Barboursville Middle School in Barboursville, West Virginia accepted the challenge to inject robotics into his curriculum first semester of the 2012-2013 school year. His students used everyday household items to make robots. Once their robots were created, their challenge was to find what they did that pertained to mathematics. Other questions asked were as follows :

1. How do I make something happen on my robot when I get close to it?

2. How do I make a purple strobe light?

3. How do I make something move on my robot?

4.  What is unique about my robot? 

5.  What have I learned from this experience?

Students and their parents brought their robots to teachers' Arts and Bots follow- up meeting this week on Marshall's campus to share them with pre-service and in-service teachers. 

Thanks for the support from Benedum Foudation, next semester, Doug will continue to use Arts and Bots with a new group of students and we look forward to seeing more creative robots!