Advice on teaching High School Robotics

[3v0]

For the 2nd year I am teaching high school computer programming. Last year I taught what amounted to a collage level intro course in C#. The students were less then thrilled. The second half of the year we did uC development which was fun but most of the students quit after the first semester.

This year I am billing the class as a robot building class using PICs and C. We will start with simple mindless line followers and as the students progress we can add processors to control them. The idea is not so much to teach a rounded coarse as to get the kids hooked on com sci or engineering.

For the second semester I am thinking of switching to C# to do some UI work and simple game programming.

Any suggestions regarding projects or other helpful info would be welcome. Budget is limited but there are only 4 students.

 

[Optikon]

If a primary goal is to get students hooked on com sci / engineering then:

1/3 of course will be spent on mechanical design

1/3 of course will be spent on electrical design

1/3 of course will be spent on programming

This allows for each student to have plenty of time / experience to find their forte.

It might be tough to design a robot with this approach however.. but hey, who says it has to be perfect in the end..

 

[philba]

Hey 3VO - that is really great.

I've tried to teach my kids robot programming and their first reaction was - wow, I have to do ALL THAT STUFF just to make some tiny little thing happen. The lesson I took from that was make it easy for them to do something significant with a small amount of programming. So I cooked some canned routines (forward, turn left, turn right, stop, wait a period of time) and showed them how to call them. They got it and started doing "robot dances". They were very proud of that and spend endless hours on it. I was going to do sensors next but other events intervened.

edit: the lego robot stuff makes it pretty easy but they don't actually learn programming.

 

[BeeBop]

If you want to get them hooked, then keep it simple and fun. Leave the design out of it, and build some simple 'hands on' projects. These kids probably feel like they have enough calculations and math from math class, and would like to build things that 'just work.' If they do get hooked they will solve problems as they come to them.
I have known adults who turned away from electronics because it was too theoretical and math intensive at the beginning, and they never got to build things at the start. I can't imagine kids delaying the gratification of building projects until they have learned all the theory first.

Phil just posted while I was writing; I'd say take his advice!

 

[yngndrw]

There's nothing better than doing something which is rewarding, we judge our performance on results.

There's nothing worse than to spend hours making something which doesn't do much. Yes it might be *perfect*, but if it doesn't do much then we see it as a pointless waste of time.

Try and keep the course very practical. In college (A level Physics), we pretty much did atleast one practical per week. I don't think I've learnt half as much from 5 years of high school Physics (Questions out of textbooks, etc) than I did in the 2 years of practical A level Physics. More importantly it was much more enjoyable.

 

[TrevorP]

Man I would have killed to have done a robotics or even electronics course in High School. They had one the year before I arrived but stopped doing it.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Try and keep the course very practical. In college (A level Physics), we pretty much did atleast one practical per week. I don't think I've learnt half as much from 5 years of high school Physics (Questions out of textbooks, etc) than I did in the 2 years of practical A level Physics. More importantly it was much more enjoyable.

Well that's really down to modern legislation and school practices, back when I did O levels we regularly did practical work in Physics, Chemistry and Biology (probably at least once a week?) - now it's extremely rare to do so. Even cookery doesn't allow cooking any more!, only theoretical lessons about good nutrition and other rubbish!.

My daighter starts her A levels in September, including A level Chemistry - I'm hoping she might get to meet a test tube!

 

[yngndrw]

It seems like the government only wants to look like they are teaching students about "healthy eating" and the like so they get more votes. They don't care about how much students learn and if they'll find it useful or not.

It's probably linked with health and safety reasons as well I'd guess, but still.

My A level Physics tutor said that (Probably long before all the health and safety crap they have now) she once got a large sheet of copper (Painted on one side and natural on the other), heated it with 4 bunson burners and got her students to hold their hands by each side of it. A nice way of showing how surface colour affects thermal radiation but you can't do anything like that these days. "OMG WHAT IF A STUDENT GETS SKIN CANCER FROM THE BUNSON BURNER ?!?!?!?"

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

We won't mention who once released a cage full of locusts in the biology labs

No one ever got caught for it, so it can't have been me!.

 

[yngndrw]

Haha, awesome.

Hey it was a learning curve - Learning what happenes ..... Nothing wrong with that.

 

[3v0]

Thanks everyone.

Today was the first whole day of class. So far we only have 3 students 1 senior and 2 sophomores. Still looking for a 4th so we can do teams.

I started on numbers today which went well. They understand binary and hex, did addition and 2s comp subtraction. They seemed quite pleased at understanding it.

Monday I will handout some practice sheets and do a 10 minute quiz. Need to keep it fun.

I ordered David Cook's Beginner and Intermediate robot building books.

We may build the line follower that uses a comparator while they get up to speed on some simple C. Might need to do a few other mindless bot as it could take a while. Need to look at what SUPER_MAN was doing. His stuff could work to introduce them to motors etc.

I will follow philba's advice and can some routines that they can call. That will allow then to start using PICs earlier. Over time they can replace it with code of their own.

They were a little disappointed when I told them there would be no open flames or spinning saw blades.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Thanks everyone.

Today was the first whole day of class. So far we only have 3 students 1 senior and 2 sophomores. Still looking for a 4th so we can do teams.

Sorry, but what ages are these purely American terms?.

I started on numbers today which went well. They understand binary and hex, did addition and 2s comp subtraction. They seemed quite pleased at understanding it.

Don't know about 2's comp subtraction, but in the UK kids do binary at junior school - probably at 9 or 10 years old?. I'm fairly sure they mention hexadecimal as well, both part os understanding numerical bases.

They were a little disappointed when I told them there would be no open flames or spinning saw blades.

I would have been as well!

I would have come and made your fourth, but I'm not coming now!.

 

[jbeng]

Sorry, but what ages are these purely American terms?

A senior in this case is generally 17-18 years old, a sophomore is generally 15-16 years.
Jeff

 

[3v0]

Don't know about 2's comp subtraction, but in the UK kids do binary at junior school - probably at 9 or 10 years old?. I'm fairly sure they mention hexadecimal as well, both part os understanding numerical bases.

It is taught at about the same time here, at least it was when I went was in school. It is quite possible these kids had it and have since forgotten.

I am a retired engineer. I volunteer my time at the school and you will not find me defending the state of education in the US.

What I am interested in is ideas about making this class work. If you want to bash the US school system start another thread and I will join you there.

 

[TrevorP]

What's really ridiculous about the education system is that I had to take Advanced Physics 12 just to do a BIT on electronics...and when I say a bit it was literally ONLY resistors and finding voltages and current...one battery.

Funny story: On a class quiz there was two diagrams each packed with about 10 resistors, and it said find out the current at each, and voltage drops across. As well as total voltage drop and current drawn. Anyway I finished both those in about 5 minutes, turned the page over and there was a simple question like "What would the resistance have to be in order to have a voltage drop 1/3 that of Resistor B?"...anyway my point is that I STILL haven't been able to access proper teaching on Circuitry.

 

[yngndrw]

I don't get the funny bit. :c

 

[3v0]

Walter the EDU Robot

Built a quick and dirty PIC16F88 based robot for classroom use. More info at
Men with Soldering Irons


**broken link removed****broken link removed**

 

[blueroomelectronics]

3V0 I'm looking to sell my Mongoose kit to Colleges and Universities. Do you think your College would be interested (I noticed you're using Tamiya parts in yours)
It's got a SN754110 & 18F2525 (nice chip with a free C18 or Swordfish demo compiler)
You could use the 16F886 instead as it's pin compatable.
**broken link removed**
PS noticed you're interested in the ENC28J60, keep your eye out for the future kit Ladybug.

 

[BeeBop]

Hey 3v0,
Men with soldering irons is a really nice site. I'm just looking at your greenhouse project now.
Thanks

 

[3v0]

Bill,
I did a bit collage teaching prior to retiring. Currently I teach a few kids (4 total) at the local high school. Building robots is used to get them interested in electronics and comp sci.

Mongoose looks like a great robot. I opted not to use it because I want students to make as much of their stuff as possible. I choose to build a H-Bridge from transistors because building and repairing it will provide needed experience using transistors.

When we get to the place where we need feedback I will be taking a careful look at you rotation sensors.

BeeBop,
The greenhouse is scheduled for a major update. Wife wants to increase the length to 2x and add natural gas heat as a backup to the electric. Have not worked on the controls in some time but need to do so prior to frost.