Art Teaching with a touch of Technology

Waupaca Middle School Robotics Club This year, my students have been asking me for an after school club. Students loved working with video cameras, and exploring the various robots I have in my classroom.  I partnered up with my Tech Ed Teacher,  Mr. Michael Waldschmidt, and we opened the labs for students to create. Our new after school club has been working to build STEM skills in our Middle School students. The first project was working to create a hydraulic arm, using syringes, and rubber tubing. The slides below are a bit of a log of what our students are up to, which run on digital signage outside of the lab. Currently, students are learning about coding, using Ozobots and Spheros. Students also are learning to manually fly light drones, such as the Parrot Mambo and the Tello Rize. Students are beginning to work through the Apple Swift Playgrounds app, to learn ways to code the drones and robots.

This school year, I am looking to develop my school's interest in Robotics. I stumbled across this project in my feed . It is a miniature version of the NASA JPL Mars Rover. I plan to build and program a robot with my students at Waupaca Middle School. Students will learn to work design and build, program, and find solutions to robotic exploration. We will follow the Stanford Design process, and create tools for the robot to be able to find information about it's environment. I am developing the unit now, but I will post links and resources as I create them. 'Rover Climbing' from Github via CC2.0