What's Happening in Beginning Mindstorms

This semester I'm teaching a Beginning Mindstorms class to middle school kids. All 12 happen to be boys even though it's open for girls to sign up. This class teaches the basic elements of move blocks, waiting, loops, switches and all about the sensors. We have 12 weeks to give an intro course which I think is fine, however, I do think the class would run better had it been a two hour class instead of one. It seems like we're always in a rush to do things even as we are accomplished an enormous amount this semester. If it were a two hour class, the kids would have time time build and program their stuff. As it goes now, I assign programs for homework so they bring it into class to test. It's been working fine, but I'm sure we could do more with a longer period in class.

Girls and LEGO

On a recent post to a group about LEGO that I like to read called LEGO Engineering, there was discussion about why girls aren't as attracted to LEGO classes or even LEGO bricks in general. The company tried making an effort to appeal to girls by creating a princess line of DUPLOS and LEGO brickss. Hmmm...just because something's pink, will that attract little girls?? My own little girl thought it was very attractive at first. We got one of the "pink" sets. She built it, but then lost interest. There wasn't a whole lot she wanted to do with the set after having it built.

Anyways, when I posed the question about girls, I got lots of great, but diverse answers that I'll try to summarize here. It's just been on my mind since I'm currently teaching an all boy class.

My question was:
"Would it be better for girls if I created an all girl MIndstorms NXT class? Does it matter? How do you create a different type of Mindstorms class that would appeal more to girls?"


Answers (that are all opinions from others experiences):

1. Incorporate projects that are more creative such as making music, theme park rides, dancing robots. Don't focus too much on speed and strength competitions. Have an end of the unit exhibition rather than a tournament.
2. Don't do anything different. Just separating them from the boys may be enough to build their confidence in building. The "appeal" of the class might simply be that there are no boys in it. Girls can be just as competitive as boys.
3. Boys are happy to do robotics w/o any context at all. Making your robot go is enough for them. Girls are more engaged if there is a reason such as build a robot to do something useful or helpful to someone else.
4. Have strong female role models.
5. Don't create a separate class for girls. The ones who really want to be involved with LEGO will be there no matter what the ratio or the topic.

So thoughts are all over the board. I think the great thing is that we are so diverse in our thinking and personalities that there really is no right answer to this question. I might go down the list and try them all!

P.S. My daughter recently discovered the LEGO Creator Building sets where you can build three different types of houses. She enjoys those and is able to adapt the sets and play more creatively with those.

The LEGO Fort

What do you get when you slap some 2 x 4's together, a board, 6 gray plates and lots of yard sale LEGO bricks? You get a fort of course! There is no limit to the imagination when you have a tub of LEGO bricks to work with. The kids built this fort complete with kitchen, workout room, bathroom, and much,much more. Then they used their minifigures and created characters (usually - good guys and bad guys) and made a storyline for what was happening in this fort. We are quite fortunate to have the space to allow them the freedom to keep this up and an ongoing play space.

Here's a close up of the kitchen and theater room.

Here's the jail and bad guy hang out.

In the Beginning...

This is the first of many blog posts about all things LEGO. It all started when my son got a set of Duplos when he was younger and has steadily progressed to where he's now playing with Mindstorms Robotics. As I am a homeschool mom, I decided to delve into the world of LEGO myself since I could see he was learning to be quite creative and imaginative with the things he built. The first complete sets he built were quickly memorized and he continued to grow from there. Later I found out about all the tournaments that are out there. I didn't realize you could compete in tournaments globally.

As I started LEGO groups that my kids could be involved in, it was a joy to see their minds working and thinking of creative problem solving solutions that went with their builds. Nowadays, they prefer playing with their LEGO Fort more than watching TV (it helps if you only have rabbit ear channels.)