Lego Robotics Camp

We’re fortunate to live in a town with a community college that reaches out to homeschoolers.  Every semester we get a course catalog with programs for our kids—Spanish lessons, science labs,  a children’s choir, etc.  In the summer, when all kids are available (and often bored), they break out the really fun stuff.  Two years ago Schnickelfritz went to Magic Camp to learn slight of hand and mental magic, there’s also a circus camp where kids learn to juggle and ride a unicycle.  There’s a forensics camp and photography camp and this year for the first time….LEGO ROBOTICS!  The interest was so great they had to add a second class.  Ever since we went to the FIRST Championships in St. Louis my son has been dying to get his hands on one of these robots.  There just hasn’t been anything in the county so far.  Know I’m thinking to myself if the college has these robots and they’re just sitting idle until next summer maybe we can get them to “sponsor” a First Lego League team and let us use their equipment. 

 

Schnickelfritz programming his ‘bot affectionately referred to as Frank

I was worried about Fritz sitting in a classroom for 2 1/2 hours since at home most of our learning is done with movement.  I was counting on the subject material holding his interest.  Fortunately, there was a lot of time spent in the halls testing the programs they had written and trying out the sensors.

Here Fritz and the boys are trying to get Frank to travel the length of the blue line.  Is it better to program the ‘bot to count revolutions of the wheels or use the timer feature?  Here’s a hint, as the battery wears down the robot moves more slowly.

This time Frank has a visual sensor to “see” the black oval.  Schnickelfritz wrote this program himself!