As an educator, I am extremely grateful for professional development opportunities like Pathfinders Infosys Foundation USA. This summer I was selected to participate in 4 different learning opportunities. My first PD was about creative robotics with CodeJoy and Hummingbird. Kelsey Derringer and Matt Chilbert provided a seamless virtual PD that introduced me over 3 days to integrating the Hummingbird and Micro:Bit into our circuit and robotics unit.
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Day 1
I loved the definition of what is a robot. Prior to this class, I had a very narrow definition of what makes up a robot.
A robot is a device that senses different input from different types of sensors like distance, sound, etc which causes it to think (Micro:Bit and Hummingbird) and then act (servos and LEDs) First we learned about how to use Makecode and how to connect the rotation servo and position servo. It was a very satisfying moment to take a bunch of wires, a little code, and have something move. |
Kelsey explained how a position servo uses static angles vs. a rotation servo is more about 360 rotation and speed.
CodeJoy has a cool Robot Mini Golf that they shared with us of how to integrate the different types of servos. They use this project during the virtual sessions with students so that students can share their code through Makecode. We also learned about how to blink an LED and then had our first project - Tiny Drummer with criteria and constraints. |
Day 2
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​With our second project, we designed an LED creature using criteria and constraints. Using a cut X in cardboard was a valuable insight to making your design with less struggle. |
My LED Bunny
After sharing our LED creatures, we learned about the different types of sensors and worked with the distance sensor. Using our LED creature, we used the distance sensor to program our robot to only respond when someone got close. This lesson led to our next project - Robot Poetry. |
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Dreams by Langston Hughes
Day 3
My Reflection
I am lucky enough to have CodeJoy with Micro:Bits in July so I will get to work with Kelsey and Matt again. Thank you Pathfinders for providing these opportunities!