Monday, September 21, 2009

Robotics Club

Balmoral School has recently set up the opportunity to be involved in a Robotics Club as part of the Lego Mindstorm for education initiative. This is the first year we are looking into entering a team of children to take part in the robotics competition. The competition not only involves programming a Mindstorm robot to enter a set series of challenges, but also involves a large research project.


This entry is to allow you and your teams to discuss and contribute to the ideas around community, and what it is. See the out take from the site instructions. Use this post over the holidays to share your ideas about this big idea.


Begin your project by describing your community. This season, it is up to your team to define your community. Is it your school? your neighborhood? your city, village, or town? your country? the world? Be prepared to share how you defined your community.


Monday, September 7, 2009

Rich Task - Our Inventions and Innovations.

Room 18 has had a busy term looking at inventions and innovations. The children were placed into groups and within these groups had to come up with a product that could be made and sold at this years Balmoral Big Day Out.

Each child had to take on a role in this collaborative technology effort and a number of considerations had to be taken into account. Such as cost, sale price and profit, the ease of creation, the design and materials, whether it suited a particular market, whether it was a need or a want, how it worked and the promotion of the product to our class. We had seven great ideas - The Pouch Pocket, The Broominator, Velcro Rope, V - Belt, Sticko-Towel, Beads and Bracelets, and even the Funky Brush.



Room 18 this task is to comment on the invention or innovation you and your group have come up with. It does not matter whether it was the one we will make as a class or not.

Tell us about your role in the group and the information you shared with the class – Cost/Profit, Need/Want, Market, What it does, How it is made and so on. If it was your job, post about it – the world should know!

Some other inventor/innovator might want to know about it…maybe you will be world famous!