For the past couple months, students at Berkeley Academy have had hands-on experience with programming and engineering through our Lego Education robotics program.
Our program introduces block-based coding to students through the wonderful world of Lego, encouraging learning in a fun and exciting way. Students have been working together to create their own unique projects, from power drills to cars.
They first did a few guided projects, in which they learned building techniques to apply to the program. They learned to build things ranging from vehicles to earthquake simulators, in order to understand how each piece interacted with one another. After learning these basics, many students came up with their own ideas and made creations of their own.
In one instance of an impressive show of perseverance and problem solving, one group of students came up with an idea for a project: to create a machine that could deposit luggage. They ran into a few challenges in the process, such as the question of how to best accomplish their goal without their machine breaking apart easily. So over the course of a couple days, they tested and adjusted their build (as well as their code) to make a working project. Thanks to this insistence on seeing the project through to the end, they were able to make an impressive working machine. Their final design can be seen below.
This program has been a great way for students to harness their creativity and learn more about the basics of computer science and engineering. It's been incredible watching the fascinating creations of the students here, who are able to make so many creative projects of their own through Lego.