Createch-ing

It's been exactly a year since my last post. To say that I have been very busy is an understatement, but I have great news that I need to share with everybody. Our Robotics Team , " Technar " ( team 12055 at FTC Alberta) got the Second Place last weekend in Edmonton in the Alberta-British Columbia competition.  The first place was for a BC team which virtually turns ours as the best team in Alberta. Yay! I couldn't be prouder and happier about this Team that has showed their talent, enthusiasm, commitment and teamwork throughout these months.  We started back in September with a group of 30 grade 8 and 9 students. We have been meeting on a weekly basis ( more than that in the last weeks) guided by Mr Wilson, Engineering and Robotics Teacher from Ernest Manning High School. Mr Wilson has participated in the competition before and has lots of experience so his help has been crucial for our team.  Our team had lots of fun in Edmonton. We had a great start g

This week we have been practicing robotics in Room 10.  We first brainstormed what do we use robots for in everyday life. We discovered that robots are often used for dangerous or difficult tasks for humans.  We then  decided our project : we will make a map of Alberta's  Natural Regions and we will make our robot tour around some landmarks in our province.  We did a couple of challenges to practice and refresh our memory before our expert, Richard Gaskell , came to our class. We also learned decimals in class because we are going to need them to program our robots. Estimation has also been a handy strategy to figure out the # of rotations needed. Today we were doing an advanced challenge. The students drew some letters with tape on the floor and the robots had to trace them. It was not easy, that is for sure, it involved decimals, angles moving backwards... but there was lots of determination and engagement and the results started to appear just in time. It was so

My class  has been designing a Minecraft town garbage detector robot. The presentation will be on May 5th. I will be showing pictures of their creations.