Gears! Gears! Gears!
Transcript: Team Captain: Hannah Preaus Critical Thinking The Process After following the instructions, we built our first robot! Collaboration within our team Engineer: Lindsie Bostrom Our Team! Robotics in the Classroom Back to the drawing board! The Pre-K Programmers Our team finally accomplished building a robot that functioned for competition. The goal was to get to the finish line the fastest. After lots of team work, problem solving, creative and critical thinking, and gaining an understanding of how robotics and the gears work, we were able to finish and win the final competition! "What could we change?" Hannah made a comment that summed up the feelings of the whole group when she said, "After I left class this week and got in my car, I thought building the robot was complicated. I can't imagine what went into building my car!" Reporter: Lacy Wycoff Artisan: Virginia Dobbins When it was possible, the team captain, engineer, and artisan divided duties and built pieces separately and combined them to check compatibility. "If the gears aren't moving, the robot isn't moving!" After deciding which team member would play each role, we decided on a gears kit named Giggles. We found all of the pieces needed to build our robot and followed all of the instructions in the booklet. After the modifications failed, we decided to start from scratch with a different model named Chompers. We picked Chompers because we could tell that this robot could move forward and backward and would serve us better in the competition. During the build, our team asked questions and helped one another through the process. At one point while building our second robot, Hannah asked Lindsie, "Can you help me get back to step 1? I feel like we missed an entire step." Adaptations to Robot No. 2 We added a set of wheels hoping for forward motion The Pre-K Programmers The Gears! Gears! Gears! Wacky Wigglers Building Set is a gears robotic system created to develop creativity and imagination in children ages 5 and up. The kit comes with instructions and parts to build four silly creatures that operate off batteries and a remote control. Unfortunately, we discovered some issues with our first robot so we sat down to do some problem solving. We were building a robot that would need to be able to compete in a challenge against another robot. Once all of our pieces were together, we discovered that our robot danced in circles and would not be able to cross a finish line. We needed to modify the robot to make it roll forward and to gain speed. Final Thoughts of the Team Gears! Gears! Gears! Robot No. 1 We couldn't believe the thought and detail that went into building an early childhood/elementary level robot. We learned that following step by step instructions isn't enough. Working together, being creative, and willing to make changes is what lead to our success as a team. Chompers before modifications Chompers was top heavy! We had to get creative and remove Chomper's chompers in order to keep it upright. The Competition! The Product Jobs Making some modifications Collaborating with the opponents Chompers after modifications