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 I had planned to participate in the  #hourofcode with the school. I had everything organized but, boom! The Flu came in the way and we ended up doing two days instead of four. Two days were enough though to get a glimpse of the interest amongst students about coding and computer science. It turns out that the opportunities for jobs in computer science is not levelled with the amount of students taking computer science as a Career.  The hour of code is an event that tries to bring this our attention and encourages more presence of computer science in schools. Because, actually, everywhere we go and almost everything we do has a computer software behind. The need is huge and the possibilities are endless.  As a math teacher also, the connections with computer programming are tremendously strong. The designers behind the hour of code also did a great job to present it in a game-like way. For instance, in the Frozen tutorial, our first two math units this year in grade 7 got

Our class went to  the Microsoft Youth Sparks workshop to learn to code and to create their own apps. At the beginning they were not sure about what to expect but soon they started to discover what it was about. The students used the new Surface pro3 to learn how to code. They enjoyed the useful pen and soon started to create beautiful designs that moved all over the screen. They created a simple pattern that looked like a caleidoscope and discovered and app that they can use to create their own games at home. After, they used a special xbox to design their own video game. They chose their world, the setting, the characters and started to create their own adventures. I recognize that there was an element of literature since they had to figure out the 5 w's and also create a beginning, middle and end to their story ( game).It was really simple and the most important thing is...they can also do their games at home if they purchase that feature. In their free time, they got to pl

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.