Lego Mindstorms - EV3's

Robotics that uses coding is the way to go for engagement and STEM learning!

Our Grade 6 classes were able to participate in a culmination of their coding by building LEGO Mindstorm EV3's and taking 3 of our robots to a TECH X 2.0 challenge day that was hosted by our board, the RCDSB. It was very exciting and challenging for our students! We were fortunate to have funding through an Ontario Ministry of Education TLLP project that allowed us to purchase some EV3's for our classrooms.

The EV3's require building using LEGO kits, and the use of a software brick that attaches motors and sensors, which then allows the robot to do so many cool things! The kits came from Brault and Bouthillier Education Products - BB.ca. We purchased our full EV3 kits plus challenge mats - the Ocean Challenge and the Mars Challenge mats. We also purchased a teacher booklet that goes through first learning and set up of the EV3's, which was so helpful for our first time using these kits with our classes. There are online resources you can access too, and videos to help students with coding their bricks to do certain things. The resource book we got was this one:

We followed the 10 challenges in this booklet to familiarize the students with building the robots, coding the bricks, and engineering the robots to complete challenges. Using the Ocean Challenge mat, which also came with its set of challenges, we expanded on our coding and engineering! Our best advice is to have someone from your IT department come and help your students and yourself get started! We took a full day to build the robots ourselves before even getting our students to build them!

Another tip is to use role cards (we used lanyards with roles) to assign roles to students when building so students worked collaboratively and changed jobs daily to complete the building phase together in groups of 3 (is best). The roles assigned were:

TEAM ROLES FOR TECHNOLOGY

ENGINEER:

• The engineer is the project manager.
• He/she instructs the team and assigns the work.
• He/she will read the assignment and fill in the worksheet.
• He/she will develop an assembly plan.
• He/she will enter the code in the programming software.
• He/she will test the robot and suggest changes to the software or robot if needed.

TECHNICIAN:

• The technician is the only team member authorized to build the robot.
• The technician adds pieces to the robot and removes pieces if needed and instructed by the engineer.

INVENTORY SUPERVISOR:

• The inventory supervisor works as a bridge between the engineer (planning) and the technician (building) by selecting needed parts from the EV3 set and giving them to the technician to use.
• The inventory supervisor organizes the EV3 kit and ensures that the parts are in their appropriate sections in the tray when building.
• He/she will check to ensure all parts of the kit are placed in the kit when building is completed for the period.

ASSISTANT TECHNICIAN:

• The assistant technician is an assistant to help with planning the robot (assists the engineer) when needed.
• The assistant technician also assists the building of the robot (assists the technician) when needed.
• He/she will also assist the inventory supervisor with ensuring all parts of the kit are place in the kit when building is completed for the period.

This year, we hope to use the Mars Challenge mat - will post pictures and tips when it is done!