Edison Robots - Bringing them in organically into Auroa Primary School

It is currently week nine of School term. Having just had a staff meeting when the subject of the TAI came up I thought that it would be apt to review the current situations relating to the use of the robots in the school.

Currently I have run sessions in four of the school classrooms - all junior school. I ran a thirty minute introduction session when I worked with the classroom teacher to promote the technology. We used a group of six robots. Following this two of the teachers accessed the technology to run additional sessions with thier classroom groups. In addition to that a teacher aide has used a robot to place in the classroom with two ORS funded students to engage them with their work.

EdisonIdeas2017 from myles webb on Vimeo.
Above: A Y2 class of students using the Edison in class in combination with blocks to 'park' the edison in a garage.  This session was run independently by the teacher without myself present.

I am currently scheduled to be in one of three remaining classrooms on Friday and will then take care of the last two classrooms as time permits (my release day is Friday and this is also a technology day). There have been some teething difficulty based around some of the use of robots - two of the initial six 'melted' due to a malfunction of the production process which caused replacement parts to be sent from Auckland.

This has left us with a set of thirteen robots, of these 12 are in regular classroom circulation and one is being reserved for the ORS funded students who are in the adjacent classroom.   Ideally the teachers would be seeking out the technology to use in conjunction with the students.  This has just started to happen but has not happened yet to the desired level and will remain a work in progress.

I have had six of these supplied by the Edison Company, who have also been made aware of my research and I have been asked as an official endorsement for the product for advertising.

Edison Robots - Suggested Lessons/Challenges

Edison Resources: Play Mat

While trawling through the existing 'Edison 2' resources from the official site I was able to locate this free downloadable play mat.  The resource looks excellent - it covers all the key expected areas of the bar code programming.   The next task associated with this is to locate a print shop capable of printing the mat A2 or A1 size and the contemplating of the laminating of such a sheet as it would be a heavy use object.   Given the multi-use of the mat I feel that it would be an excellent teaching resource and something to enable the teachers to use the technology in a meaningful way.  We are an extremely well resources school that has a multitude of resources including a variety of robots available to staff and students (including Beebots and Ozobots) my challenge is to ensure that the teachers are feeling empowered with the technology to use it, and then apply the computational thinking as a consequence for the students to be successful.

Edison 2 - Unexpected Line Tracking

We have completed a process whereby the Edison have now had their use modelled in the junior classrooms at Auroa Primary School.  I have spent ten to fifteen minutes in every classroom of the junior school with the classroom teacher present and modelled a basic start up lesson with the Edison.  As a result of which in one classroom a teacher has instigated a 'genius hour' with her students, and as part of this process a 'discovery' time was started with robots as a student option.  This required two Room Three (my) students to assist their students.   One of the Room Three students while working outside with these students experimented with the 'line tracking' option on the concrete area outside of the classroom - this is the result:
Edison Robot - Line Tracking Outside! from myles webb on Vimeo.
While the tracking was not perfect the actual line that it was following was not painted completely - and one would suspect that it would be possible to follow painted lines in an outside environment. There were grooves in the concrete at points that caused the Edison some difficulty - however it was an interesting addition to the Edisons capabilities.

Edison 2 - 'Build a bridge and get over it'.

A makeshift bridge created with rulers.

Challenge: For students to build a 'bridge' over three A4 sheets of card.  Students were able to use books, rulers and other objects within the classroom to complete the task.  They needed to start the Edison on one side of the 'river' and have it move to the other side of the river successfully.  Students were not able to construct in the 'river'.
Level: This task was completed by Y5/6 class of students 10 and 11 year olds.  The timeframe was thirty minutes from start to finish.  We allowed a five minute 'show' time when groups who were making progress towards the task showed evidence to the others in the class.
Notes: The initial start the students had the Edison in 'avoid obstacle' mode, this meant that the control of the Edison was somewhat difficult.  Most of the groups identified the need to switch the Edison to the 'clap controlled driving mode' which allowed them more control of the Edison along the 'bridge'.   One group opted to use the 'line tracking' bar code which they created by making their own tracking line with black vivid.   This was moderately successful because the line was inconsistent.   Several other groups attempted to create a 'channel' of books to have the robot bounce off.  'Clap controlled' driving was by far and away the most successful of the groups to complete the task.  Some of the groups used masking tape to apply it to the rulers and books to stabilize them as the Edison moved over them