Two weeks down

The second week of school is now over. It seems like it has been more than two weeks since we started. This was only a 4 day because of Labor day. Several kids commented about how the 4 day week seemed so long.

This next week will be very busy: Back to School night for Morgan and me, Micah's first football scrimmage, Robotics Team Kickoff meeting, Engineering meeting with University of Texas, First Lego League conference call, Micah's Back to School night, Morgan's first basketball game and we are hosting the Kickoff for Capital BEST Robotics next Saturday. It will be busy but fun.

My Robotics team seems very excited about the contest and the year. At least this year, they knew what they were getting into when they signed up for the class. For an assignment this week, they worked in small groups on last years BEST contest. Each group had to propose a design and a scoring strategy for the contest. Each group presented to the class. It was interesting for Hamzah and I to listen to their proposals since we were part of the contest last year. Many of the designs were very complicated but not completely thought out. Each team had difficulty answering questions about how they would actually accomplish their proposal. But we have N.O.R.M.A.N. from last years robot contest. They will be able to look at the speed, manuverability and reaction of the robot. They were very receptive to feedback and questions from me about thier design. It will be ineresting to see how they approach the season and contest.

The Robotics I students began building their Lego robots on Friday. We are using the Robotics Engineering curriculum from Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy. They were so excited to start building and working with the Legos. Several of the students had worked with NXT kits before but all students were very focused and intent in the class.

This year will present some new challenges for me a teacher as well as a learner. In addition to my job, I am beginning my research for my graduate school project. I have to email Dr. Summers a paragraph describing my research topic. I visited with her on Wednesday about my topic and research. Topics I am considering are high school to university transition, gender in robotics, diversity of age in my robotics classes and ???? This is the most pressing issue for the weekend for me.

Image source: http://www.wireandtwine.com/img/products/busy/prod-busy.jpg