Skip to main content

Happy Hour of Code Week

By Anonymous

Don't forget that next week is the Hour of Code, a global initiative to entice people of all ages to learn one hour of coding through games.  You don't need to do anything more than download some promotional materials and lead patrons to the website for them to sign in.  To extend the hour of code beyond the website, we'll be putting out some of our robots to try.

This year's newest addition to our circulating collection is the adorable Dash robot. Who is by far my favorite robot that I have played with because Dash actually has a personality! I immediately wanted to hug him and yell "Johnny 5 Alive!" Dash talks, blinks, lights up and runs around on 3 wheels. He has a companion robot, Dot, many fun accessories, and even Lego brick adapters.

The apps that I downloaded for him on our iPad gen. 2 (gen 1 won't work) are:

Blockly
Path
Blockly Jr.
Wonder

Wonder is the hardest and least intuitive app, aimed for experienced robotics users or at least middle school students with Path being the easiest.  I posted a video of Dash at the race track using Path on Instagram. Blockly took a few minutes to get going but if you have any experience with Scratch programs it will be immediately understood.  All of these are free downloads.

My other new robot this year is for the preschool set called Bee Bot. He doesn't require an iPad and is simply there to teach basic order of operations using 7 buttons on his back: LEFT, RIGHT, FORWARD, BACKWARD, STOP, PAUSE & GO. Here is a great classroom example of its use.  You could build it a little obstacle course and challenge kids to safely make Bee Bot go through the path.

I was practicing with Dash today at the desk and a little boy about 2 came up to it completely in awe. He WOULD NOT talk to me but he readily said, "Goodbye Dash!" on his way out. His grandmother had said this is probably his first experience seeing a robot and isn't that what the " Library of the Future" is all about?
Labels:

Comments

  1. BloggerNovember 2, 2017 at 8:54 AM

    Ever wanted to get free Facebook Followers?
    Did you know you can get these ON AUTOPILOT AND TOTALLY FOR FREE by registering on Like 4 Like?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for commenting!

Popular posts from this blog

Makey Makey Floor Piano

By Anonymous
If you are looking for a short, low cost project to do with your Makey Makeys, this one is sure to be a big hit. It's a great small group project as well as an eye catching interactive display in some noisy area of the library (as long as you can keep library staff sane). This was made as part of our Tinkering Tuesdays lab. We had low tech cardboard construction, 3D printing, and the Makey floor piano going on simultaneously. It took us about 1.5 hours with 3 teens helping. Materials List: Aluminum Tape $12 Duct Tape (any color) $2 Makey Makey $50 CAT cable (there's one lying around your library trust me) or just use regular wire Wire strippers 12 x 12 x 1.5 in puzzle piece exercise mat $12 white 6 x 8 tarp (but could be smaller) $12 Computer with internet running Scratch This video shows a demonstration with step by step picture instructions and a more detailed video explanation. I got the idea from two sites that I used for consult: Ed Tech Junkies & Mak...
4 comments
Read more

Our most popular makerspace/STEM/Library of Things

By Anonymous
As of April 2018, we did a kit circulation report.  We had 106 kits which have circulated 1,047 times since it's inception in 2015.  Here is the top 10 list of most circulated. These include hobby kits, puzzles, cake pans, instruments, science robots/STEM, and American Girl dolls. The ukulele kits (we have one soprano and one concert kit) have been around the longest and have circulated 106 times total.  Just remember someone should change the strings yearly and definitely include a tuner (we like the snark) as new strings on a uke take a while to break in. Surprisingly our meditation toolbox comes in second with 51 checkouts.  It is just some CDs and a DVD.  This one has also been around since the inception of our kits. Next up is our virtual reality headset toolbox.  It is a Homido Virtual Reality headset. If that is too pricey, I recommend Google Cardboard.  Our sewing machine comes in 5th.  Knitting is a great idea fo...
4 comments
Read more

3D Printing Signs for the Library Collection

By Anonymous
Last weekend, I went to the annual Tee-Off mini golf event at the Brookline Public Library.  As a first time visitor, I was mini-golfing with my phone at the ready. Special thanks to the AMAZING librarian rockstar Robin Brenner for so many great ideas. It truly is worth a visit just to see her teen room. Here are a few 3D printing/marketing ideas to takeaway: Having a  3D printer filtration cart would be wonderful in our library.  Look at the price if you dare.  Right now I have to go downstairs to retrieve prints because we are concerned about the fumes and little hands touching anything while the printer is on.  I have a video camera set up downstairs using an iPad 2 and the free app called Presence  for monitoring but sometimes I do forget to keep checking the presence website while I'm on the desk especially since it makes this annoying beeping sound to say, "Are you still watching?!"..As the sign reveals on the cart, the propensity to want to lean or...
29 comments
Read more