This year Robotics will be delving into the computational thinking that is pivotal in Robotics by using open server platform programs like NEPO. NEPO, which is backwards for OPEN (server), allows students to program virtual robots to complete a plethora of tiered assignments. These assignments help build their engineering mindset throughout the year by allowing them to freely revisit the process of ideation to creation. Inventors have coined this as the EDP (Engineering Design Process). These hard and soft skills will eventually serve valuable when applied to whatever discipline they choose to help determine their future pathways.

This year 6th graders are using Autodesk Tinkercad, an easy-to-use app for 3D design, electronics, and coding, that encourages creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration in our classroom. Tinkercad is a free and web-based application. This means that students may access and work on their designs using almost any computer that is connected to the internet, without having to install any software. The skills they will be learning are directly connected to innovative careers such as architecture, animation, engineering, industrial design, electrical engineering, and more. Through the use of this learning tool, they will be able to go from MIND to DESIGN in minutes.

So far this year, students have gone through various tutorials to learn about primitive shapes as well as navigating, grouping, and aligning the shapes. Various concepts learned while doing so include math- area, perimeter, volume, and surface area; and design thinking- the purpose of sketching, orthographic projections, and the overall design process. The first project was to create a keychain with their name on it. They are currently working on creating an avatar, a digital 3D model of themselves, on TinkerCAD.

In the coming months, students will be learning about the Paleolithic era (Old Stone Age), and recreate artifacts from this era to learn how evidence is used to understand the past. Concepts that will be learned while engaged in this process are math- scaling (up and down); accuracy and precision; and design thinking- the purpose of feedback and the importance of iteration.

We look forward to a great year as we incorporate the use of technology and inspire your child to design and make.

This year in Coding, students will be exploring the possibilities of animation, storytelling and game design using the Scratch platform. Currently students have learned to share their work in a shared classroom studio, make remixes of each other's creations, and animate the letters of their name. Students will continue to learn how to draw using scratch, how to create interactive and purely animated stories and creative works. They will continue to learn how to use the coordinate plane to design their work while growing their vocabulary as young coders and computer programers. We hope to light a fire inside our students and see them grow into the field of STEM and computer science through this Scratch platform.