[Edu-sig] Inexpensive robot teaching platforms

[Vern Ceder]

Definitely looks promising. Keep us posted and good luck!

Vern

On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 11:09 AM, Blake Elias <blakeelias at gmail.com> wrote:

> Right now we're leaning towards the Adventure Bot:
>
> http://custobots.com/products/adventure-bot-rs005
>
> It's quite a bit cheaper at $80.  Though it doesn't have nearly as
> many sensors, they'll still be able to do some cool things.  And we
> can afford more of them so the kids can work in smaller groups.  With
> the small amount of time we have to teach, I'm not sure we'd even get
> a chance to use the Scribbler's additional capabilities like camera
> processing.
>
> Once they see the basics on the small robot, they'll be able to play a
> little bit with the larger ones we build for the competition, which
> weigh 120 lbs and have more functions.  Those just aren't great
> teaching tools in the beginning because they take up more space and we
> don't have enough of them for kids to work in groups of 1-3.
>
> Blake Elias
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 1:16 AM, Vern Ceder <vceder at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Blake,
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Blake Elias <blakeelias at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> My high school competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition.  Every year
> >> we have to teach new members basic robotics and programming concepts,
> >> to get them excited and prepared for the heat of competition.  Those
> >> who have the patience stay with it and have a great time, but we
> >> always lose a bunch of people partly because the lessons are not very
> >> interesting or useful.  I believe the solution is to teach with small
> >> robots, instead of just writing on the board and doing "hello
> >> world"-type programs.
> >
> > That was exactly the same conclusion we came to, although at our school
> the
> > competition uses Vexx components and is designed by local engineers. And
> > we've had some success following the approach you suggest.
> >
> >>
> >> Vern, I was very inspired by your PyCon talk on teaching programming
> >> with the Scribbler.  I know people have had success with it, it looks
> >
> > I'm glad to hear that, I'm going to give essentially the same talk at
> ISTE
> > on Monday (thanks to the Python Software Foundation board for supporting
> > that trip financially!), and I'll report back if I get any interesting
> > feedback.
> >>
> >> like a great robot to teach with.  For our budget however, getting a
> >> bunch of these would be a stretch (I think the scribbler + fluke board
> >> combo costs $140 -- is this correct?).  You do need the Fluke board
> >> unless you want to program it in BASIC Stamp or their GUI, right?
> >
> > You are pretty much right on all counts, except that the Scribbler/Fluke
> > combo is more like $180. Depending on numbers it still might be worth it
> to
> > work in teams of 2-4, although that does have its downside. The scribbler
> > isn't perfect, but it's pretty darned good for the cost.
> > Cheers and good luck (and by all means, keep us posted).
> > Vern
> >>
> >> I've seen some cheaper mini-robots but I'm not sure if they're any
> >> good.  Does anyone have suggestions?
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Blake Elias
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> Edu-sig at python.org
> >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Vern Ceder
> > vceder at gmail.com, vceder at dogsinmotion.com
> > The Quick Python Book, 2nd Ed - http://bit.ly/bRsWDW
> >
> >
> >
>



-- 
Vern Ceder
vceder at gmail.com, vceder at dogsinmotion.com
The Quick Python Book, 2nd Ed - http://bit.ly/bRsWDW
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