Room 9 spent their first S.T.E.M. Friday of Term 4 engaged in some robot programming - with varying degrees of success!

S.T.E.M. stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. In Room 9, every Friday is set aside to some kind of S.T.E.M. activity. This past Friday Mr Boon brought in some Edison robots and we used the EdBlocks online tool to programme the robots. 

The task sounded simple: to programme the robot to move from the start line so that it finished its travels inside a small square box about two metres away. However, there were many, many failures - many due, in part, to an unseen ridge in the carpet which pushed the robots off to the right of the finishing area. Eventually several groups were successful at getting their robots to stop inside the box. 

STEM-based education is a way to allow students to build their problem-solving, collaborative and thinking skills. It also helps build resilience as there is much more failure on these tasks than there is success. Far from giving up, students were running back to their computers to fiddle about and tinker with their programmes as they were driven to succeed in the task. 

Ruby Stone:  The first time I did it I thought it would be in a straight line but it was a little bit on a curve. The last time I got it because I put the robot on the side of the start line and it ended up in the box. 
Hollie and Ruby N:  It didn't download properly onto our robot so we had to re-programme the robot so it would work. We got our robot to go through the square, but it kept going out. 
Logan, Regan and Tyler:  We needed to change our programme because the robot didn't make it the whole way. The next time we tried it again it did the same thing so we had to change it again. 
Blake & Harry:  The first time we programmed it we tried to get it to turn next to the square but it did donuts. We changed how long the robot was going for so it would stop at the finish line.

Ka pai Room 9. Great to see you all so driven to succeed at a challenge!