Ages 4+? Really?

It is not a joke at all! I promise that with a little help from their teachers, even adorable little 4-7 year olds can enjoy a bit of programming with Edison robots. The most simplistic method of programming the robots is by scanning a bar code. There are various lessons that Edison provides with these bar codes to program the robots to perform a task and then you can use your imagination to design a lesson around that yourself if you want!

Programs with Bar Codes:

There are various modes that you can put the Edison robots in using these bar codes: clapping mode, avoid obstacle mode, follow the light mode, line follow mode, and more!

Can you think of some lesson ideas that can bring these robots to your classroom just from these modes? What about having students discuss shapes using the robots (can you make the robot go around the circle? square? triangle?)? Or perhaps a lesson on counting using claps to get the robots to travel across the rooms? I think you can probably come up with a lot of great lessons involving clapping at the very least!

Resources:

So where do we find these great resources? Good question! If you go to Edison's website you can find many wonderful resources! Best yet, the resources are FREE! It doesn't get much better than that! There is also a page (below) that provides you an activity mat that you can use with the Edison robots. They suggest to print it off at a local shop to get it done right but if you are savvy I bet you can figure it out on your own (I honestly haven't yet but my printing skills are not as strong as yours may be).

If you are anything like me, you are hoping that the person designing this site is nice enough to provide you links to the resources you want rather than expecting you to find them all yourself... Good news! Check out the links below to find out just where to go!

Barcodes Activity Book

Complete list of Barcodes

Activity Mats

Main section on Barcodes

Main section on the Barcodes Activity Book