Robot Club

I wrote a grant! And my project was funded! I am thrilled and fascinated by grant writing. I look a course during my Masters in Library Science program and it honestly was so helpful. When I went to write a grant for this robot club, I knew exactly what to do, and when I did have questions, I had my professor as a resource to turn to. I couldn’t have asked for a better first grant writing experience!

The grant was from the Indiana State Library Foundation, and the requirements can be found here. The grant is so open ended, it could have been written for anything! About a year prior, our wonderful representative from the Indiana State Library came to us with a professional development day called “Robot Petting Zoo”. It is exactly what it sounds like: she brought the robots and we were able to tinker with them and see how they worked! I instantly took a liking to Dash by Wonder Workshop, and I really wanted to get a set for the library.

My interest in Dash, plus my best friend emailing me the link to this grant application was the perfect combination! I wrote the grant in the winter, and was notified in late December that the project would be funded. When I received the check, I immediately purchased the robots and accessories that I outlined in my grant, and we got moving on the specifics of Robot Club!

I love this photo because they look like a boy band.

Here is a list of (and links to) the materials I was able to purchase from the grant funding:

Dash Robot x5

Launcher for Dash x2

Xylophone for Dash x2

Sketch Kit for Dash x2

Whiteboard Mat for Sketch Kit x1

Challenge Cards x1

The basic flow of the club is as follows:

1. 10 kids register for the program (3 meetings per club)
2. I put them in pairs, and each pair was assigned 1 robot and 1 iPad
3. Each week, a group works with a different accessory
4. By the time the month is over, they have learned about coding and robotics and working together!

(This club was going on at the same time as the LEGO contest! You can see some of the projects on the shelf in the bottom left corner).

I’m going to go through the three accessories and outline what the goals and objectives are, along with some photos of the kiddos. I made up handouts for each accessory (below) so they could have some tangible instructions, with pictures of the code to help them out.

Launcher

I put this final picture in here because of the Styrofoam cup tower. One of the challenges was to make a tower and knock it over. After this group met that challenge, they decided to make a tower and put the bucket behind it, and try to launch the ball OVER the tower without knocking it over, and land it in the bucket. So creative!

Xylophone

Sketch Kit 

I highly recommend Dash to anyone who is robot shopping! Whether you are a librarian, teacher, or a parent, I think Dash will be able to really help your kiddos learn in a FUN way!

We did two robot clubs in the spring and we have another one scheduled for September. The kids really enjoyed it! I already have two kiddos who participated in the spring asking if they can do it again! Now that’s a compliment!

DIY Robots

Program Date: 3/21/19

This program was scheduled for early January but we had a snow day and I had to cancel! It was late March by the time we were able to make it up, but it was such a fun program.

Kids LOVE robots, and I looked really hard for a couple of robots that they could DIY easily (and without a soldering iron). I ended up with two types of robots: a little guy who has light up eyes, and a scribbling robot!

I am going to go one robot at a time, and outline how we made them.

**(This combination worked out SO well because the first robot used the bristly part of an electric toothbrush, and the second one used the handle/motor part. I couldn’t have planned it any better honestly.)**

DIY Light Up Robot Bugs

The link for these cute little guys is here. In the end, they look like this:

I needed quite a few materials for this one:

Electric toothbrush tops (normal toothbrushes will be cheaper if you are not doing the scribble bot also. But if you are, buy the electric toothbrushes for that one and just use the tops for this bot. Super easy!)

LED Lights (I bought color changing ones!)

Coin 3V Batteries

Mobile phone coin motor

Tape

I diverted slightly from the original link instructions. I had the kids tape the black wire of the coin motor to the bottom (the side with no engraved info) of the 3V battery, and then tape the red wire to the top of the top of the battery. Some of the coin motors didn’t have much exposed wire on the end, so they had to be *really* particular and make sure that the exposed wire touched the battery directly. When you get it right, the robot will buzz ONCE, lightly. 

After that, we had them tape both the coin battery and the coin motor onto the toothbrush, bristles down. Once the battery and motor are secure, the LEDs slide easily around the battery if you don’t bend the wires. On LED lights like this, there is 1 wire prong that is *slightly* longer than the other. The longer side goes with the RED wire, and the shorter sides goes with the BLACK wire. If you get them backwards, the LED will not light up.

The kids were really thrilled with how their little guys turned out!

Scribble Bots

The link for these wacky robots is here. In the end, they look like this:

These guys were so cool but we struggled a little getting them exactly right. For this robot you will need:

Electric toothbrushes (You can leave them intact if you aren’t using the bristles for the light up robot from above) (I bought Meijer brand when they were on sale!)

Pool noodles sections

Thin markers (cheap ones because you will be giving them away)

Rubber bands

Duct tape

White paper (we used 11×14)

Google eyes (optional)

Permanent markers (optional)

Stickers (optional)

Pipe cleaners (optional)

The first step for this robot was handing out pool noodles and toothbrush handles! The toothbrush handles weren’t quite as wide as the pool noodle holes, so they slid right through. This is where the rubber bands came in! We had the kids wrap a couple of rubber bands around the thickest part of the handle, to make them a little wider and help them stay lodged in the noodle hole. This part was heavy on trial and error. If it was too *tight*, the vibration didn’t move the robot enough to make him scribble. But if it was too *loose*, the same thing happened. It was a very specific process and we had to try different combinations with different kids.

Once the toothbrush handle was secured inside the pool noodle, I let the kids pick out 3 marker colors. I chose browns when I made my example so the kids would have the best colors to pick from. We let them pick 1 marker at a time, and went around the tables 3 times so it was fair.

The next step was duct taping the markers to the pool noodle, cap side down. This was another error-full step. I assumed that the markers being level would be the best, so the robot didn’t tip over. After experimenting over and over with one little girl’s robot, we discovered that one marker being *slightly* longer than the rest made it off balance *just* enough to make the vibration actually move the robot.

After that they could decorate their robots. We gave them google eyes and pipe cleaners and stickers and markers and let them decorate their robot however they wanted!

After the decorating, we turned the toothbrushes on and watched the robots scribble! A few worked WAY better than others, and there are so many variables it was hard to figure out why. We did our best! But the kiddos had fun watching the robots move around and mark up their paper!

I apparently was too busy troubleshooting to get photos of the actual building process but here are some after photos!

I am SO glad we were able to find time in the schedule to make this program up because it was so cool and the kids loved it!

 

 

Story Hour: Robots

Program Date: 3/12/19

I tried to think of some really fun topics that I knew kids would love for this spring session. Along with pirates and ninjas and (spoiler alert) superheroes, I HAD to include robots!

I read two robot books because one was REALLY long. It was also REALLY great and is one of my favorites ever! The books were:

1. Randy Riley’s Really Big Hit by Chris Van Dusen
2. Bitty Bot’s Big Beach Getaway by Tim McCana

They both area really great books, but I LOVE Randy Riley! It is such a good story about finding your place and using the skills you already have! And also there’s an asteroid and a robot and baseball! I highly recommend to anyone and everyone.

In between the books we sang a robot song to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot”. I found the song on Pinterest. I made up the motions based on the lyrics by Tara Simpson (2014). The song went like this:

I’m a little robot (point to self)

Shiny and tall (stretch tall and stand on tiptoes)

Here is my laser (point like you have laser hands)

Here is my claw (make a claw with your hands)

When I get all cranky (hands on hips)

Sputter and cough (cough)

Flip the switch (flip an imaginary switch)

And turn me off (bend at the waist and let your arms hang low like a robot who was turned off)

The song was really fun! And it was a good break with lots of fun motions after the lengthy first book.

For our craft we made robot pictures! I used Word to create various robot shapes, and gave each kiddo two eyes, a nose, a mouth, an antennae and two kind of side/ear shapes. The kids were able to color them whatever color they wanted, and then cut them out. I prepped for this also by wrapping a piece of cardstock in tin foil. I taped the foil on the back side so it would stay in place when the kiddos glued their pieces on.

 

 

Book Review: Enginerds by Jarrett Lerner

5/5 Stars!

Fantastic story! I will definitely be purchasing a copy of this book for the library and recommending it to readers of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”, “Big Nate” and “Captain Underpants”. Such a fun and funny story (with a perfect dash of potty humor) would be perfect for readers’ of these popular series’!

A truly winning combination of STEM, farting robots, snacks and friendship, “Enginerds” really kicks off when Kennedy finds a mysterious box on his front porch. As the mystery unravels, a hilarious story unfolds that I believe will even keep reluctant readers coming back for more.

Additionally I think this book would make a compelling read aloud. I may try it out with my third/fourth grade students next semester!

Can’t wait for “Revenge of the Enginerds” in February of 2019!

Buy the Book

(Will update with a link to the library catalog once I purchase!)