Social discussion of CS in K-12

["Muskin, Joseph" <jmuskin AT illinois.edu>]

Here are good Arduino-based kits:

 

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13166

 

The kits require only about 15 minutes of screwing pieces together, no soldering. They work with Arublock as well. Reasonably good support to get you up and running quickly, yet very flexible so you can soon start doing whatever you want.

 

 

And of course the Lego Mindstorms kits:

 

http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-6029291-Mindstorms-EV3-31313/dp/B00CWER3XY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1449846637&sr=8-1&keywords=lego+mindstorms+set

 

The University uses these even with their freshman engineering students, they have 60 kits they use first semester each year. So even though they are Lego, they actually are used to introduce college freshman to engineering design.

 

 

I’m not sure there is much of an iphone/ipad interface for either of these, however.  But both these options have a large user base so there is good internet resources and 3^rd party support, so it is possible. Plus both are greatly expandable so you really can’t reach the end of what either can do. They start out easy, but get very complex.

 

 

 

From: ctrl-shift-bounces+jmuskin=illinois.edu AT lists.mste.illinois.edu [mailto:ctrl-shift-bounces+jmuskin=illinois.edu AT lists.mste.illinois.edu] On Behalf Of Mike Bohlmann
Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2015 9:36 PM
To: sacrophyte AT gmail.com; imc-makerspace AT lists.chambana.net; ctrl-shift AT lists.mste.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: [Ctrl-Shift] [Imc-makerspace] Ideas for educational programmable robot kits (for teens and adults)?

 

 

Do you have a price point you're shooting for? For the interface, I have been thinking about a Blynk-powered control system with my Arduino Yun. Unfortunately, I need to get a motor driver shield before I can build it and other projects have my attention at the moment. Also unfortunately, that is NOT a cheap kit.

 

Mike

 

On Thu, Dec 10, 2015 at 7:44 PM Charles Schultz <sacrophyte AT gmail.com> wrote:

Good evening,

 

I am fishing around for programmable robotic kits. No soldering, arduino/RPi would be nice, interface with an iphone/ipod would be a huge plus. Hoping to hear back from those that actually have played with something you suggest. *grin* Target audience is an early teen learning how to program and a parent who wants to have lots of fun.

 

--

Charles Schultz

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