Sumo Bot Competition

My 7/8th grade Advanced Tech Ed - Robotics class held the first Sumo Bot competition this week.  They had been working hard all nine weeks learning how to program and build a Lego NXT robot.  This competition was the final challenge, and what an experience it was.  Practically the whole school came to watch these bots challenge each other for the Gold.

 

Final standings are as follows:

 

1st Place - Beetle - Garrett A. and Jack A.

2nd Place - Frankie the Llama - Tori W. and Gracie S.

3rd Place - Hagrid Rutherford - Josh C. and Trevor H.

4th Place - Amanda - Ryan Roy and Jake Jeffries

5th Place - Senor Pantalones - Mark Bautista and Spencer Pearce

6th Place - Ponce de Leon - Reese Jones and Jared Greif

7th Place - Sum Skier Uy - Hayden Karlak and Kylie Uy

8th Place - Muchacho - Allyson Sharp and Audrey McIntosh

 

 

Click here to watch the youtube video of all the pictures and videos.

 



 

Motion Show Film Festival for 5/6th Advanced Tech Ed

Students from 1st and 2nd grade came to the lab for the 6th graders Motion Show Film Festival.  After working for over a week on their motion shows, the 6th graders presented them to the younger students.  They voted on their favorites. 

 

The winners were as follows:

 

1st - Michael J. - Space Walk

2nd - Jack S.  -  Free Falling

3rd - Freddy B. - Fun on the Trampoline

3rd - Amanda S. - Jump Rope

4th - Anna E. - A Fun Day on the Playground

4th - Jason N. - Super Z

4th - Becca N. - Sneaky Ninja

4th - John M. - The Great Chase

 Students all had jobs during the film festival.  Some were announcers, others were technical support, while others were ballot/pencil and crowd control.

Keyboard Challenge Grand Prix

Many students works hard to beat my keyboard challenge - "Race into Technology".  Those students who beat my challenge of 25 levels earned the Grand Prix event.  First grade student, Dalton H's grandparents own The Pit Stop" and offered to share their model race cars and set up a course.  Many of the students had never operated model cars like these and had an enjoyable time.  Good job to all my students in working hard to learn how to use the computer keyboard.

Flowers for the Teacher!

It is Teacher Appreciation Week and today students are bringing in flowers for all their teachers.  It is amazing how special you feel when all the sweet children you teach bring you a flower.  Some of the flowers are from their own gardens.  I want to thank all my students for being so wonderful.

Finishing our Photo Booth Project

We finished our Photo Booth project today and it was quite a success.  I learned that I have a lot of outgoing, photogenic students in my Advanced Tech Ed class.  That made is so much fun.  I learned about the history of the photobooth also.

Photo Booth in Advanced Tech Ed

Do you remember the Photo Booth?  This week in Advanced 5/6th Tech Ed we recreated a photo booth.  Students grouped together and took turns being the camera.  After creating a one-page MLA report on the history of the photo booth, they were able to upload their photos and create their own b/w, vintage style strips.  I couldn't resist photo-bombing one of the groups.

Robotics - Running our Program together!

Students in Robotics' Class built a 5-minute bot and programmed to run it forward, backward and two different kinds of turns.  Here we ran our robots together.

R2-D2 makes an appearance to the Pre-K Computer Class!

Pre-K students enjoyed watching R2-D2 patrol around the classroom.  With his sensors, he was able to know when to turn and not crash into any students.  But some students were a bit worried when he got too close.

 Jameson was preparing for a crash as R2 came quite close to him.

Robotics Has Begun!

7/8th Advanced Tech Ed has begun with my Robotics Class.  What a great group of kids.  We are going to have so much fun.  We just finished our first project which was a spinning top.  This easy project allowed students to get their hands on all the parts, create a simple program, download to their NXT brick and have a little competition.  Audrey and Josh's top spun the longest.  It was fun to see them all spin.  The best part was to see the thinking and brainstorming that had to occur.  Thinking and working together are two of the most important outcomes from participating in a robotics class.  Good job teams!!!