Buildologie Bulletin
April 2019
Showcases!
Our 5th-grade classes hosted showcases, where they invited parents and other classes to come see all their hard work. The teams also gave feedback to each other, with a focus on being positive and critical, but NOT negative. Meanwhile, the teacher and Bytes & Bots mentors worked together to narrow their ~10 teams to about 5 in preparation for preliminary judging the following week.
Design
As part of their engineering process, students had to start out with a plan. In their presentation, they explained the path they planned to program their robot to take.
Build
Students explained the basic structure of their robots and the attachments they had to build in order to interact with object on the playing field.
Program
Students walked through each block of their program, explaining what each one makes the robot do as it runs its mission.
https://youtu.be/UBgt4Y2Mdp0
This team persevered through several tries before successfully adding water to the fountain. What a great feeling when both the 5th-grade class and the visiting class cheers for your success!
Preliminary Judging
The week after showcases, the top 5 teams from each class presented to a panel of judges, made up of much-appreciated AESD employees. The decision was VERY difficult in many cases, but the judges chose a Finalist and Runner-Up from each class. The finalists (5 teams in all; one from each class) will move forward to compete at Play Code Compete on Saturday, May 18.
While teams presented, the rest of the students filled out feedback forms to help them stay engaged and to help whichever team moves forward to make their project even better.
What's Next?
Although finalists will have the opportunity to polish up their projects based on judge and student feedback, most students will be leaving their projects behind and learning some new LEGO Mindstorms coding! Mentors will be teaching the students to program their own "remote control" for the robot so they can manually drive and steer it. This will involve loops (like the Forever block in Scratch) and if/else logic.
And of course, our big event, Play Code Compete, is Saturday, May 18!
Written by Heather Boling
Heather is AESD's Bytes & Bots Digital Learning Coach. This month, she has been finding judges for Play Code Compete and preparing many details to be ready for the big day. She also visited as many showcases and judging events as possible, sometimes jumping in to judge herself. In addition, she has been assisting in delivering instruction for Scratch and eSports and has been coaching staff on a variety of topics.
Email: hboling@anaheimelementary.org
Website: https://sites.google.com/anaheimelementary.org/codologiestudent/home
Location: Digital Education Services, 313 S. Melrose St. Anaheim, CA
Phone: (714)517-7532 -- 4191
Twitter: @hcboling