Sphero Trial 4!

Trial 4! Its amazing to think that we have met now three times! Only two of the girls were able to make it but it was still a wonderful meeting. First, I want to talk about Science Saturday that happened a couple weeks ago. It was a community event for people to attend. It was all about hands on science activities. We were able to show off Sphero. We borrowed two more Spheros from the school as well as some iPad's and we had students who came get a chance to paint a streak in a mural (ended up three total) that are now hanging in the Library at the school. We heard comments like "This is SO cool!" and "Can I try?!". Most often, the kids didn't want to give up their turn. It was a huge success and we have three wonderful murals now hanging in the school to commemorate the day. (see the pictures below!)

So, for this meeting the girls wanted to continue with the house project. They continued to work on their program. Last time, they had a hard time getting the program right. So this time around they decided to start with the angles of the house as a starting point. They worked diligently and tested their program A LOT! More times that I can count. They ended up starting their program over, and working on the part that was giving them the issue, first and then adding what they knew worked. It was a success! I LOVED listing to their rich conversations about what happened and what they were going to try next. I was especially intrigued at the math they were preforming seamlessly without even thinking about it. They were looking at angles and speed and time as they were all factors in creating a program that worked for their purpose. They went on to test on the board with paint!

As you can see, it didn't exactly go as planned... They ran it a couple times and got inconsistent results. They couldn't figure out why. So, they wanted to try it on the ground. We did just that and see what happened... 

 

It totally did it correctly! So, they learned that the table we were using was not level and that was causing the program to not run correctly which ultimately made an incomplete picture. (WOAH! How awesome is that?!) See the finished picture below! 

Completed final house!!! 

Then, we had a high school student reach out to us about doing some long exposure photography with Sphero using the lights. THAT WAS WAY COOL. We are waiting for the final pictures from the student which will be posted when we get them. It was awesome to see everyone working together and to see another medium being used to create artwork! 

Finally, the girls got their next challenge from me. I want them to create a flower as wall art for my apartment. They started out with a sketch and from there went into programing. They wanted to start with the middle of the flower. They didn't think Sphero could make a circle... but they played around with the app and found out that they can control the right and left motors to create a circle! It was awesome. They did something they didn't think they could do at first. We ran out of time to do much more than that but they were testing in the hall, and I would bet they are going to make great progress next time! 

The girls are testing out their program. They are using sticky notes to see where Sphero starts and ends to see if it ends up in the same spot.