Collaboration to be a Winner!

Recently, we attended a student-led conference at Campbells Bay Primary for Year 4-6 (8-10 years old). Called WeLearn2023, the conference offered a variety of activities and involved older students showing the younger ones how to use the resources and vice-versa. From designing using Tinkercad and Kai’s Clan, Scratchpad, Code Avengers, Lego Bricks and Botzees and more.

Let’s say we were overjoyed watching the kids join Kai’s Clan and pair up with buddies to demonstrate their coding skills and abilities using the Kai robots. During the 20-minute presentation, the students coded their robots using the following sequence to familiarize the younger students with how to use Kai’s Clan.

During the 20-minute presentation, the students coded their robots using the following sequence to familiarize the younger students with how to use Kai’s Clan. Here is an example of that the students used.

From there, they placed all 12 robots on the new Super Size Mars mat.

The new challenge was for each group to collaborate and pick up the gripper object and pass it from one student to the next using their code. The final student was to play a song using their Kai’s Clan robot to be declared the winner. When they formed their group, the students quickly knew who was to be the leader and that student made sure everybody knows what they need to do. Of course, there were a lot of lively discussions on how the team should code, as well as some testing and tweaking before the final run.

In challenging the other groups, we can see that competitiveness and sportsmanship were clearly still values that are being practiced. We all want to be winners, so it was lovely to see when we rewarded the winning group with some snacks they shared among their competing peers. Campbells Bay Primary can be proud of showing us the values they have instilled in their students. This is the reason why we continue to work with schools incorporating STEAM and digital technologies in their classrooms. We want to see more and more students code and for them to share what they’ve learned with each other.

The eagle-eyed among you might have already caught on when I mentioned SUPER SIZE mats...

…and you are absolutely right, they are here! These mats are super cool and you can fit all 12 robots and more on it. Say “No more” to trying to squeeze in your whole classroom on the standard mats. We still recommend working in groups to help with the collaboration process, of course.

So if you have a team of 3-4 students, remember some can design robot avatars, some can add the Sandbox gaming effects, plan your project and then the rest can code the robots. Once your code is perfect then view your final run and use the Kai’s Clan Virtual viewer to experience the Augmented reality or pop your phone in a Virtual headset and be the driver of your mars Robot exploring the dusty terrain.