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This year 2003-04  the Junior Technicians have piloted the Lego Mindstorms Robotics project. The students built robots, installed the software into a laptop, worked with the programming and tested the robots in an effort to gage if this would be an appropriate project for their peers in Grade 4 and 6. Below you will find the groups logs which act as a journal of the project.

We have 7 students in Grade 5, working as a team. Our first session we discussed what strategies we would adopt to work as a team, what might be some of the issues we would want to focus on before building the first prototype.

Journal entry January 19th, 2004

The students got an opportunity to chat about Robots, and explore some of the aspects of the Lego Mindstorm site. We talked about how we would divide tasks, and what model we would start with.
John Mikton

You get to do fun things like "create robots". Derick

Making Lego Mindstorms is going to be really cool! Elena

I think it is going to be fun to build and control the robot! Leo

I think that building robots will be fun and exciting! Keith

I am very excited about making robots and using the computer!!! Youyu

I'm so excited to fix computers and work with Lego and I think it's going to be fun! Yuki

Journal entry for Feb. 9, 2004

The students have been quite busy doing maintenance on the laptops and student machines in the last two sessions. They worked on the virus updates on the class machines, helped switch all the laptops from Novell to Microsoft Networking, and did some initial tests for Luc and I. Today is the first full day we have had to work only on the Lego Mindstorms project, below are some thoughts from the Junior Techs.

 John Mikton Facilitator

It's hard to find pieces because there is a lot of them and there are so many bags. We spent time sorting and categorizing which has been very helpful, and something we suggest.  Keith

It's hard to find the right pieces because so many look very much alike, if you used the wrong pieces you have to start all over. It is tough at times. Youyu

The small pieces all look alike so it is hard and if you separate the pieces up it will be a lot easier. We decided to sort all the pieces into zip lock bags by size and color, much easier. Yuki

As you build up things be sure to check the book often. If you can't find a piece, probably used a wrong piece on something. Elena

Sometimes when you look at a piece and it looks right and then you check and u have almost done it you have to take it apart and then put it back together again. It is really tough. Leo

Double check if you put the right piece in the right place because if you don't then you will get very ,far into it and have to take it all appart and start over. Derick

Sometimes when the instructions tell you, you need a certain size and you find it in the bag the piece doesn't fit check the size graph to make sure the piece is the correct size. This mostly complies with the long black poles. Nick

Journal Entry March 1 and 8 

In the last couple sessions the JT's have been installing a variety of patches for the laptops in an effort to stabilize the network connections. They also have been working on updates on the student class machines.

We have been  using robots and download software to make the robot follow what we want it to. It is cool because you could actually make robots out of Lego.   Youyu

We are downloading and running the Lego robot. The robot is really cool because we finished the training mission. Now we are trying the challenges. I think it is a cool Lego robot.   Leo 

We have done all of the training missions. Now we are doing the challenges. The challenges are really fun but hard. We get to program the Lego so it is really cool.   Yuki

Journal Entry March 15

For our last session the JT's got to program their own commands into the RCX and then trial them. We then had a challenge to get the robots to go from the Lab to the Library.

This is the end of this activity, students will be using these robots in grade 4 with their Simple Machines projects.

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August 29, 2005
Contact:  jerwin@asij.ac.jp

Pages maintained by jerwin@asij.ac.jp  Original Course Design John Mikton & Derrel Fincher  Course Facilitation: jerwin@asij.ac.jp Monday August 29, 2005