About six months ago I asked Elijah for a list of things he wanted to study. Robots was on the list. Um-hum and oh-no.
You see, once something gets on Elijah’s want-to-study list, it stays there for a very long time…and this particular subject is more like at the tippy top of the want-to have-to must study list…and this particular subject is likely to stay there…forever.
So, Jason and I decided to invest in a WeDo Robotics Kit by Lego Education. This particular kit comes with Legos for constructing the robots as well as computer software to aid in the engineering and programming.
Elijah has been working with the kit for a few weeks; he’s been teaching himself about simple machines– axles & motors, gears (all kinds from the idler gear to the crown gear to the worm gear to the whatever other kind of gear I have no clue about), belts (how to increase speed & how to decrease speed), and levers.
Today, he started on his first real project — Dancing Birds.
Elijah spent a block of time playing with the gears and such to affect the speed and direction of motion.
He also had fun programming the birds to do different things along with some sound effects.
As he was working this morning, I knew I wanted to put this all in a blog post as an introduction to his robotics study. At the tail end of his work, I decided to grab the video camera. Through the clip below, you can get a glimpse of the Wedo Robotics program.
I will try to take some video of each robotics project. Elijah is excited to share, and it would be good practice for his speaking skills since he needs to work on articulation (and I could use some video camera practice, too!). 🙂
I am very excited about these new projects you are working on Elijah! Learning, exploring, experimenting and then showing us what you did, that was great.
Ami & Jason, way to go!!! Hold on tight, because you are off on a looonnnggg adventure!
Wow!!! That looks like so much fun. I had no idea Lego made stuff like that. It’s so great to see Elijah’s obvious excitement :0)
That is really awesome! We will probably be getting something like this in a few years for my son. His grandpa coaches a robotics team and my son is already wanting to participate.
Very cool!