CityCAMP EV3

Great news!

Remember that Lego RoboSanta we played with at Academy a couple of weeks ago? Well, a while back Josep and I entered it in a contest and guess what...we won! The price? a six months of e-learning subscription to cityCAMP.

What is more important, HLACNY/Academy has generously purchased a Lego Mindstorms EV3 for us to build with and take full advantage of this opportunity. Thank you Home Learners Association of Central New York for your support!!!!!

So, as soon as we get it we will start building a helicopter, a scissor lift, a race car, a wind turbine, and a bulldozer among other models. Check out the motorbike below:

VIDEO: Motorcycle LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Education




This is going to be fun but it is also going to require a lot of team work and some serious programming effort. Notice the type of programming we are going to be using in the picture below, a more complicated variation of what we have been doing in the past in this class.

In preparation for class, I would like for you to download the version of the software we will be using in class so you start becoming familiar with it. It is free and you can get it here. Please ask your parents to help you with this!

Finally, please note that so far we have been able to work in teams of two because we had many smaller Lego sets to work with. However, as soon as we start working with Lego Mindstorms EV3 we will be working in slightly larger groups of three or four. Remember that I expect EVERYONE to be able to work COOPERATIVELY in this class. All students in each team will be able to contribute with the building, programming and testing of our models.

I look forward to starting these cool models in the near future with your help, my young Lego engineer friends!

RoboCAMP Extreme

Today we started two new robotic projects: a Ferris wheel and a tower crane. Teams were given a chance to choose which project to work on.

In the next few weeks we will complete them and hopefully move to our very own smart car (able to detect obstacles and backtrack) and a smart house that interacts with the car, so when a parent drives in it becomes active (see-saw and greeter at balcony).



Enjoy some of today's pictures and see you next week.

Team Ferris Wheel

Team Tower Crane

RCX Cars

Today we had a blast with the EV3 RoboCAMP Santa. Students took turns controlling the IR remote. Maybe I will film it next week and we will post it here?

We then built very basic cars with our RCX bricks. Next day in class we will start programming them with RoboLab so they can perform some basic tasks.

Also, in the next few weeks I will distribute some PDF documents to parents so students can start familiarizing themselves with the icons most commonly used in this program.

I have a fantastic group of students in my class and I really look forward to working with them every week.

Enjoy the video below; a little bit chaotic true, but it seems like somebody was having fun!

VIDEO: RCX Cars



See you on Tuesday.