A consistent topic of conversation amongst FIRST Lego League (FLL) coaches and mentors is how much help should the adults be giving students. It is a fine line, on one hand there is the desire for the students to succeed in the competition and on the other the need for the students to learn for themselves and experience success or failure by their own efforts.
In a similar school competition some years ago I watched as teachers followed the rule of the competition to the letter and did absolutely nothing for the students. The students had a great time but walked away disappointed about how 'bad' they were compared to other schools. In that competition I don't know if the top teams received help from their teachers, if they were more experienced with the competition and knew what to do or simply worked harder and were more motivated. But the final result was that the following year students didn't want to participate because of previous perceived failures.
Each year in FLL we see new schools enter the competition only to disappear the next year. Without being privy to their inner team conversations I can only speculate why they didn't return. Although it usually comes down to either cost to enter, time to prepare or failure to compete at the level they think they should be at.
So back to the issue of teacher help. By the strictest rules of FLL the coaches and mentors shouldn't do any of the work for the team. But what constitutes work, if the coach provides a robot design that the team build it who did the work? Or if the coach tells the team the sequence of code to use and the team actually write it?
In both cases I believe even the coach providing the code or the design is not in the spirit of the competition. The coach needs to be there providing support for the team but giving them something to copy doesn't help the team to learn. Real learning can be achieved by directing the team to resources, or demonstrating skills that the team then need to understand and apply to the FLL challenge.
I've talked previously about building demonstration machines from Yoshihito Isogawa's books. In collaboration with this I might demonstrate some different techniques for attaching to the robot but my goal is not to put all of those things together, those final steps of connecting concepts need to be done by the team.
The same goes with coding, before the competition actually kicks off the lessons in class are normally related to skills they might need in the tournament. Finding and following a line, aligning the robot around the mat or using sensors. When the competition starts I remind the team of those lessons and ask them to think about what they learnt or go back and load that code looking for hints.
When it comes to the competition it's important for the team to be honest about what they did and didn't do. Where a coach has helped the team they should be able to explain what the code or mechanism actually does and why.
Invariably there are teams at the tournament that were helped extensively by the coach. While we don't hear about it rest assured that the judges can spot this and will mark the team accordingly (or even disqualify them). As a coach I cannot imagine anything worse than knowing your team was disqualified because you didn't let the team do the work. Equally there is no pride for the team in collecting an award that they know the didn't do the work for.
Friday 5 June 2015
Tuesday 2 June 2015
FLL Casts Website Review
There are a lot of website and videos out there to help teachers and students learn Lego Mindstorms building and programming. So in my opinion anybody charging a subscription fee for their website would want to be offering an extremely high quality service. Enter fllcasts.com.
FLL Casts is a website run by five gentlemen in Bulgaria, who have extensive FLL experience in all aspects including tournament judging. At the time of writing this, the website has 92 video tutorials ranging from robot design and building (see my resources page for an adapted version of their EV3 competition robot), to software and sensor tutorials to discussions on how to complete the FLL challenges from seasons past. There is also links to competition rules and details for FLL seasons dating back to 2007. Videos are often supplemented with PDF materials of the designs or Mindstorms software downloads.
As EV3 is only a few years old much of the content is still based on NXT technology which while beneficial for some, it is fast hitting a point that this content will be redundant (at the Victorian FLL Championships last year more than half the teams used EV3).
At the moment they seem to provide a new video around once a week and from what I can tell they seem to have been in operation for just over 2 years. So the one video a week seems pretty consistent over that time.
The videos are clear and concise, with most lasting between 4-10 minutes. When they are longer they usually split them into at least two parts or 10 parts in the case of the "Big Daddy" robot tutorial. Although there is usually around 60 seconds "preview" at the start of each video for the non subscribers.
Community wise they seem to have a number of subscribers that comment on videos although it seems pretty rare to see many more than 5-6 comments on any one video. To their credit they engage with the commenters and respond to their, questions, ideas, or criticisms. I'd like to see this really expanded perhaps even into a forum for discussion on issues, currently this is done on comments, and their Facebook page.
Personally I've enjoyed the videos I've seen so far and have gained something out of the website. Even showing my students one or two of them to give them ideas. But for $8USD a month ($10+AUD) I can't see myself remaining a subscriber all year. I've watched a number of videos that interest me but at one video a week and no huge community to add content and discussion it's not really long term value for money. Maybe I'll sign back up later in the year for another month and watch the videos from the last six months that I've missed.
Summary
Good website, lots of content, not value for money.
FLL Casts is a website run by five gentlemen in Bulgaria, who have extensive FLL experience in all aspects including tournament judging. At the time of writing this, the website has 92 video tutorials ranging from robot design and building (see my resources page for an adapted version of their EV3 competition robot), to software and sensor tutorials to discussions on how to complete the FLL challenges from seasons past. There is also links to competition rules and details for FLL seasons dating back to 2007. Videos are often supplemented with PDF materials of the designs or Mindstorms software downloads.
As EV3 is only a few years old much of the content is still based on NXT technology which while beneficial for some, it is fast hitting a point that this content will be redundant (at the Victorian FLL Championships last year more than half the teams used EV3).
At the moment they seem to provide a new video around once a week and from what I can tell they seem to have been in operation for just over 2 years. So the one video a week seems pretty consistent over that time.
The videos are clear and concise, with most lasting between 4-10 minutes. When they are longer they usually split them into at least two parts or 10 parts in the case of the "Big Daddy" robot tutorial. Although there is usually around 60 seconds "preview" at the start of each video for the non subscribers.
Community wise they seem to have a number of subscribers that comment on videos although it seems pretty rare to see many more than 5-6 comments on any one video. To their credit they engage with the commenters and respond to their, questions, ideas, or criticisms. I'd like to see this really expanded perhaps even into a forum for discussion on issues, currently this is done on comments, and their Facebook page.
Personally I've enjoyed the videos I've seen so far and have gained something out of the website. Even showing my students one or two of them to give them ideas. But for $8USD a month ($10+AUD) I can't see myself remaining a subscriber all year. I've watched a number of videos that interest me but at one video a week and no huge community to add content and discussion it's not really long term value for money. Maybe I'll sign back up later in the year for another month and watch the videos from the last six months that I've missed.
Summary
Good website, lots of content, not value for money.
Learning from Technic Models
Like most kids I always looked forward to Christmas and my birthday and was even happier when a rectangular boxed present would appear as it usually meant I was about to score a brand new Lego model to build (8854 was a particular favourite). Twenty five years later my answer to family and friends questions about things I would like usually involves more Lego (you can never have to much Lego!).
However, when I look back at those models I don't think I fully got the educational benefit of them at the time. It was always a race to get the model built so I could play with it and I didn't really take the time to look at what the pieces were doing in the model.
Now when I build a model I try and ask myself "what is this piece actually for?" Is it going to be part of the steering, the crane or the tip truck. Is this beam going to provide a brace for something, why does it have only two pins and not six. Sometimes the questions can't be answered until the model is finished, and sometimes I get more from by pulling the already completed model apart. Over the last week I've slowly deconstructed set 9395 Tow Truck and currently have the chassis sitting half built on my desk. This model had a driving ring for a clutch gear which I've often wondered about, by pulling it apart I've seen how the Lego designers used it and have subsequently built a working example of one to share with students.
I know this is not an easy concept for students, but sometimes building and pulling apart a model is a great way to learn. Provided the builder has an open mindset and thinks about the model is doing and not just competing in a race to finish.
However, when I look back at those models I don't think I fully got the educational benefit of them at the time. It was always a race to get the model built so I could play with it and I didn't really take the time to look at what the pieces were doing in the model.
Now when I build a model I try and ask myself "what is this piece actually for?" Is it going to be part of the steering, the crane or the tip truck. Is this beam going to provide a brace for something, why does it have only two pins and not six. Sometimes the questions can't be answered until the model is finished, and sometimes I get more from by pulling the already completed model apart. Over the last week I've slowly deconstructed set 9395 Tow Truck and currently have the chassis sitting half built on my desk. This model had a driving ring for a clutch gear which I've often wondered about, by pulling it apart I've seen how the Lego designers used it and have subsequently built a working example of one to share with students.
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| Chassis from 9395 Tow Truck |
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| Driving ring and shifter to change between two gears. |
Changing the angle of rotation
What is the most important skill for students to have in their robot building?
I've thought about this a lot recently and everything is so intertwined that to pin point a single skill is proving difficult. Students need to have the ability to make a strong model, using a minimal quantity of but also the appropriate pieces. Students need to have the understanding of some simple machines concepts like gears and leverage, not only how the concepts work but how they can implement them in their creations.
So what's the answer? Firstly I think the more students build the better they become, they see which pieces work together and which ones don't. The better they know the pieces the better they can become working with them and knowing which piece is the most appropriate. To practice this I've recently been asking students to come up with multiple ways of 'changing the angle of rotation'. Meaning, connect two gears so that the drive gear is turning on the x axis or horizontally (blue) and the driven gear is on the y axis/vertically (tan).
I've thought about this a lot recently and everything is so intertwined that to pin point a single skill is proving difficult. Students need to have the ability to make a strong model, using a minimal quantity of but also the appropriate pieces. Students need to have the understanding of some simple machines concepts like gears and leverage, not only how the concepts work but how they can implement them in their creations.
So what's the answer? Firstly I think the more students build the better they become, they see which pieces work together and which ones don't. The better they know the pieces the better they can become working with them and knowing which piece is the most appropriate. To practice this I've recently been asking students to come up with multiple ways of 'changing the angle of rotation'. Meaning, connect two gears so that the drive gear is turning on the x axis or horizontally (blue) and the driven gear is on the y axis/vertically (tan).
I find this is a really tricky task for many students. While they easily get the concept they often struggle actually connecting the two and come up with convoluted systems of axles and bent liftarms to achieve something that partly resembles the brief.
That's where these pieces come in handy, each of these pieces change the direction of the technic beams and provide some clues for students. I'm still finding I need to show them some models either physically or from one of Yoshihito Isogawa's books to help them see how the pieces work but with this help they are starting to improve their knowledge of technic engineering, becoming more confident with the pieces and are increasingly solving more challenges.
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