Programming/Coding has come to Lego! Well it's always been there hasn't it really: Following a set of pretty unambiguous instructions to create a model but with Lego Wedo you can make your Lego come to life without touching it! This app is designed for Lego Wedo sets so you can't just download it and start making your Death Star roll about like a Sphero! WeDo 2.0 sets cost around £110 and with that you'll get all the Lego you'll need as well a motor, sensors and a control unit operated by 2 AA batteries (no usb connection) and it's controlled by Bluetooth 4. You can even control it with Scratch! (Haven't tried this yet)The app itself is free and basically is an instruction manual with lots of different designs that your students can make. Rather than just giving you a car to build Lego Education have given the student different scenarios that make great links with different areas of the curriculum. They're going to be looking at earthquakes by making a house testing rig to see which design can survive a series in earthquakes which increase in intensity. They might want to imagine travelling to Mars or into the depths of a volcanoe by making and programming a rover robot.After the standardly easy to follow Lego instructions you are shown examples of block coding for the student to copy. They do this simply by dragging and dropping colourful jigsaw like blocks of code. This is one of the best features of the app. It gets the children programming and seeing what they have made come to life straight away. The majority of my infants don't initially understand the coding blocks but as their rover comes to life they quickly see what each block of code is doing. From here they can quickly be extended to make their rover not only stop when its sensor is activated but reverse away from whatever has been detected.Children in my code club and class have had lots of fun and have really enjoyed creatively adapting what they have made.Connection with Bluetooth has been very easy but we have had issues recently when working with other schools! When working with 10 sets it seems like tablets and devices can get confused. When working with my school's three sets with iPads however we have never had any issues.Sets come with handy labelled trays that keeps all your Lego highly organised. Once projects have been completed you will need to allow time for children to get Lego back to the right sections. To be honest my infants have struggled with this part!When using these sets I'd recommend separate tables for each tray as you really don't want the headache of search around your trays fir that flat yellow 2 by 4 piece.I've downloaded the START version of the app as this takes up a hec of a lot less space on my iPads compared to the full version. As the student get through the models in the START version I'll download the FULL version. Both are free.Lego education have really spent some time developing this app as there are also section for adding photos of what you have made and adding text to you code to explain the process. A nice touch but one I am yet to try. Buy yourself a set and get building. Do check before hand that your iPad, laptop, desktop or android tablet is compatible. I believe you can find this out on the Lego website.Mr B
Saturday, 25 June 2016
Lego Education WeDo 2.0 START
Programming/Coding has come to Lego! Well it's always been there hasn't it really: Following a set of pretty unambiguous instructions to create a model but with Lego Wedo you can make your Lego come to life without touching it! This app is designed for Lego Wedo sets so you can't just download it and start making your Death Star roll about like a Sphero! WeDo 2.0 sets cost around £110 and with that you'll get all the Lego you'll need as well a motor, sensors and a control unit operated by 2 AA batteries (no usb connection) and it's controlled by Bluetooth 4. You can even control it with Scratch! (Haven't tried this yet)The app itself is free and basically is an instruction manual with lots of different designs that your students can make. Rather than just giving you a car to build Lego Education have given the student different scenarios that make great links with different areas of the curriculum. They're going to be looking at earthquakes by making a house testing rig to see which design can survive a series in earthquakes which increase in intensity. They might want to imagine travelling to Mars or into the depths of a volcanoe by making and programming a rover robot.After the standardly easy to follow Lego instructions you are shown examples of block coding for the student to copy. They do this simply by dragging and dropping colourful jigsaw like blocks of code. This is one of the best features of the app. It gets the children programming and seeing what they have made come to life straight away. The majority of my infants don't initially understand the coding blocks but as their rover comes to life they quickly see what each block of code is doing. From here they can quickly be extended to make their rover not only stop when its sensor is activated but reverse away from whatever has been detected.Children in my code club and class have had lots of fun and have really enjoyed creatively adapting what they have made.Connection with Bluetooth has been very easy but we have had issues recently when working with other schools! When working with 10 sets it seems like tablets and devices can get confused. When working with my school's three sets with iPads however we have never had any issues.Sets come with handy labelled trays that keeps all your Lego highly organised. Once projects have been completed you will need to allow time for children to get Lego back to the right sections. To be honest my infants have struggled with this part!When using these sets I'd recommend separate tables for each tray as you really don't want the headache of search around your trays fir that flat yellow 2 by 4 piece.I've downloaded the START version of the app as this takes up a hec of a lot less space on my iPads compared to the full version. As the student get through the models in the START version I'll download the FULL version. Both are free.Lego education have really spent some time developing this app as there are also section for adding photos of what you have made and adding text to you code to explain the process. A nice touch but one I am yet to try. Buy yourself a set and get building. Do check before hand that your iPad, laptop, desktop or android tablet is compatible. I believe you can find this out on the Lego website.Mr B
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