Students in Mark Richard's Grade 7 Computer Science Class showed off everything they have been learning about programming and coding over the past 2 weeks. The class has been using a software program called Scratch to design computer games and Lego Mindstorms to program and code robots.
"Students are coming to school already knowing how to use computers," says Teacher Mark Richards. "We decided that we wanted to teach them how to program and code and deepen their understanding of how computers work. The students are finding it to be very powerful that they can program a robot to do exactly what they want it to do and they are very excited about their learning. It's amazing how quickly they are able to master coding and programming. I've had to think of new and harder challenges for this class of computer scientists."
St. Thomas Aquinas High School is continually looking for new and innovative ways to challenge and engage their students through science and technology.
Jackson (pictured in the video) explains the process, "the programming and coding happens on the computer and the box on the robot stores all the programming so the robot will do what you want it to. We watched a video to learn how to do the coding and programming. I really like programming things."
Here Jackson's robot demonstrates the maneuvers that have been programmed into it:
Here's what a few students had to say about their learning:
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Kennedy and Jada: "We've learned how to program a robot to make turns and work through an obstacle course."
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Ashley: "I've learned quite a bit in this class. It's really neat how I'm able to program the robot to sense obstacles on the ground and move around them. I found that I'm getting smarter after watching the videos and programming the robot. I love what I'm learning."
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Connor: "I designed a penguin game. The objective is to continue playing for as long as you can before the ball hits you. You have to make the penguin jump over the ball. It's really neat to go online now because I can see the games that other people have created and now I can look at the programming behind the game and see how they designed their game. It took me about 20 minutes to create my game."
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Connor: " I like that I can program the robot to sensor things and stop. I have a much better understanding of how to do robotics through programming and coding. I find it really challenging but fun and I know so much more this week than when we started."
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Faith: "I really liked the Sensibot Challenge. I had to program my robot to go from a starting position, do an inspection, raise its arms, then return to the starting position. The first step is to do all the programming on the computer. Then download the program into the robot. It's challenging to program the robot because you have to be aware of how many rotations you program into the motor."
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Faith takes a closer look at her robot before she lets it demonstrate its programming.
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