Skip to main content

Student Feedback from Brooke Weston

Thank you to the students and staff at Brooke Weston School, Corby, UK for working with us on this project. Here are some of the comments made by the students.

Several of the students identified some interesting features about building robots out of 'junk':
"We had the [f]reedom to show the teachers what skills we have" (Student B)
"interesting overall" (Student H)
"...but frustrating because modifications were frequent" (Student J)
"The activity was very fun and creative. We experience lots of difficulties to overcome." (Student K)
"it was nice have time off timetable once in a while" (Student N)
"I found that building the junk bots has made me some new friends..." (Student T)
"...as we[ we]re able to put any ideas forward to put ideas forward to create our own creation" (Student V)

The programming of the robots caused a differences in opinion which seemed to come down to two main factors, that there was only one robot per group and having to learn a challenging new skill (programming):
"Didn't get much of a go on this one" (Students D, E)
"this was good however I didn't get to to do a lot" (Student F)
"Really enjoyed it" (Student G)
"It was really good and the amount I have learnt about Java is incredible" (Student J)
"This activity was fun but very fustrating if the program wasn't going well" (Student L)
"We didn't actually get much of a go on this one because we had to plan the presentation" (Student O)
"It was cool because we could program them" (Student Q)
"It was good being the programmer" (student R)

Waste Management like the programming of the robots caused some variation in feedback:
"Lots of information which was useful..."(Student B)
"Very informative but could have been a bit more fun" (Student I)
"I learnt a lot and calculating my carbon footprint was great" (Student J)
"This was different and you found out facts" (Student P)
"I learnt about [Eco] stuff" (Student S)
"I found the waste management activity helpf[ul] because it showed me the truth of what we could do to help the earth" (Student T)
"I liked the presentation we were given...interesting facts which we will remember a long time" (Student V)
"I learnt a lot from this. I enjoyed planning a campaign and the statistics were revealing" (Student W)


On the project overall the feedback was very positive
"The whole project was really fun and I enjoyed it lots and I liked making the robots the most" (Student A)
"The project as a whole was very fun and I learnt many different skills." (Student C)
"It was fun because I learnt about carbon emissions and the stuff you need to do the robot" (Student M)
"Overall it was very fun yet informative" (Student R)
"The junkbots project was great! It was a great way to teach us more about science, technology, engineering and maths. I also think it improved our problem solving skills. " (Student W)

Some pictures of the activities in action can be found at http://www.brookeweston.org/Home/Galleries/Gallery.aspx?id=132


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

junkbots 3 - bring it all together

Junkbots session 3: Move the robot but now there are rocks in the way.  This is the last of three posts - Introduction and sequence - Loops and just having fun - This one: Making decisions and bringing it all together. What is the Junkbots project The Junkbots project has been running for a number of years as an initiative to bring sustainability, computing and engineering together by building bots out of junk; details of the project can be found at.  https://junkbots.blogspot.com/  . Junkbots is an extension of the Research into the teaching problem-solving going on at the University of Northampton please feel to visit  https://computingnorthampton.blogspot.com/2019/01/problem-solving-research-outputs-and.html  for more details.   What are we going to do? ·         Play with a Scratch robot on the screen! ·         Build on the routines from the previous session. ·    ...

Junkbot Raspberry Pi: 2 Raspberry Pi Junkbot in action

First video of a junkbot being controlled by a Raspberry Pi. The bot was developed by Hayden Tetley and Scott Turner. Hayden's time was paid  for through the Nuffield Research Placements  Scheme ( http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/nuffield-research-placements ). Next post will provide further details on how this was done. If you would like to know more about the Junkbots project contact scott.turner@northampton.ac.uk

Junkbot videos - Hayley's work

A collection of videos from Hayley Stevenson's junkbots work including insect-like robots And here is what it drew: Taken from:  http://junkbots-hayleystevenson.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html Taken from:  http://junkbots-hayleystevenson.blogspot.com/2011/08/day-9-fan-racer-comes-to-life.html Junkbots and lego robots combined:  taken from:  http://junkbots-hayleystevenson.blogspot.com/2011/08/day-18-my-last-day.html   Here is the video summarising her work: Taken from:  http://junkbots-hayleystevenson.blogspot.com/2011/08/update-video-montage.html