Robot Club - fourth session completed

Link to Preparing post details in the parts in the kits.: http://winkleink.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/preparing-for-2015-after-school.html

Link to First session; http://winkleink.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/robot-club-first-session-completed.html

Note; I did not post for the second session. There is a short summary in the Third Session post.
Link to Third session: http://winkleink.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/robot-club-third-session-completed.html

This week we nearly had a full house.
Only 1 child missing due to illness.

The 4 who attended the previous week remember a lot of their work and code so were getting stuck into getting their robots to go around a corner.

I had a bit more fun getting drivers on enough school PCs to permit the Arduino Nano to be seen. It needs custom USB/Serial drivers that are not included by default.

The teacher who is ICT coordinator came in to see the session in full swing with robots spinning, or moving along the floor. With coding going on and due to plus and minus lines on the batteries being shorted a nice little display of black smoke and the lovely smell of burnt plastic.
No real harm done just a jumper wires plastic sleeving was melted.
I congratulated the child on making smoke as it's something we all do when we work with electronics.  They were kind of shocked.
It was great that the teacher had the same attitude so no harm done and no concern about burning down the school.
I tested their robot kit and Arduino. Nothing damaged, amazingly so did a little bit of rewiring and handed them back their robot to get working on again.

On of the kids who was in the previous session had a problem where their robot was pulling to the left.  These are small cheap kits so the motors aren't tuned and the wheels are small and have grip meaning they catch on the carpet.  Meaning they cannot reliably go straight.
We tried to fix it by turning the wheels in or our to change the resistance but no go so introduced that child to analogWrite.
A value of 235 seemed to make it all work perfectly. They had a nice straight running robot.

Once again the kids were not that eager to leave as they were perfecting their code and making it better.

At the end one of the girls who was being collected wanted to show her mother what she had done so she gave a great demonstration of her robot.  Holding down reset to stop it moving.
Set it up and let it go. She then explained the code she had made as well as giving details on some of the other parts we will be using.

Next week we will be using an input device. A small line following sensor. I will mark the edge of the room area with white paper providing a contrast with the blue flooring. The idea will be to detect the paper and make the robot turn.
This will be the first time the kids do inputs and will also require the introduction of the 'if' statement.

Looking forward to another productive session next Monday.

2nd Code Club lesson - experience and thoughts

After the first week where only 4 kids turned up this week was a different experience with 11 kids.  Of which 5 were boys and the rest were girls.  So, a nice mix.
The folders I gave the kids the last time were a big hit.  2 of the girls had decorated their folders and some of the new kids had been told about by others what happened the last time and were looking for their folders. 12p folders from the pound shop make you a hero.

The second lesson is the Whack a Witch class where the kids make a similar game to Whack a Mole but with witches. This class can be be downloaded from the www.codeclub.org.uk website. The final words 'look like this' are the link.

Wit most of the kids having missed the first session I had to go through some of the fundamentals with them but didn't want to lose the excitement and moment of actually doing so I gathered them around one computer and showed them the stage, sprites, and the other bits at a really high level, knowing this wouldn't be enough for them to work on their own but hopefully would give them some comfort with the interface.

What followed was a manic hour of excited kids and a whole lot of one-on-one guidance.
But this time by the end all kids had the game completed.  Some with more support than others, but they all had their game to play and enjoy.  One of the girls who was there last week got it done in about 20 minutes and even started helping others. I think I have found my future helper.  Nothing proves you have learned something than being able to show others. I made a point of telling her mother when she was being collected how great she was and how helpful she was with the others just starting.

I provided a letter for kids that I found here (http://andrewjohns.net/blog/2012/12/a-letter-to-parents-regarding-scratch/) to take home for their parents if they wished to explain to their parents what they are doing and also ask to have Scratch installed on their home computers.

Once again the time felt way too short. It's either me or the sessions should be 90 minutes so I've asked the teacher coordinating if we can run the sessions from 3:20 - 5:00.  Giving 10 minutes at the start and then 90 minutes of mad activity.

When the kids had gone and we were back in the class tidying up a great thing happened. Another teacher came in and said while she was in her class she heard 2 boys outside saying how great the club was. Really enthusiastic and excitedly.  So, even though the class was a bit rushed and the learnings were limited due to the speed the No.1 objective I hope for was achieved. The kids were excited and eager to do more.  The learning and understand will come once they master the interface and repeat some of the steps.

So, another successful(ish) Code Club. Roll on next week and the fireworks.