6th Grade
Computer Control Modules in ICT
Games are a fun way to learn but we don’t just play them, we write them ourselves!
We write programs in Scratch which is a games environment programming language. In other words, it is used to create computer games. Images of figures, called sprites, can be made to move and interact with each other in a wide variety of provided backgrounds. Sprites and backgrounds can also be created or downloaded from the internet. You can even write a program for a PONG game: “ Do you remember that?”
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7th Grade
mBot Robot control programming
Our robots can’t clean-up our rooms but they are a lot of fun!
mBot robots come with 3 pre-loaded programs. Straight out of the box they can be driven by a
remote, they can avoid obstacles and they can follow a black line e.g. a figure of eight. That’s great
but sometimes one remote controls someone else’s mBot and then there’s chaos!
So we learn to connect our mBot to a pc by cable or wireless and program it to move.
There are loads of tutorials to try out. The first tutorial tests the light sensor on the mBot and, if it goes dark, it plays a tune for us. The first time it played was incredible!
There are many inputs to test e.g. infra-red for distance, 2 light sensors underneath for line
following, a thermometer, etc. We check the inputs and then, depending on what we want to do,
we can control various outputs e.g. move the wheels backward or forward independently or play
Notes and even flash lights. There are also displays to communicate time and temperature. If only it could cook pizza! Then we could program mBot to bring one to us!
8th Grade
Flowol Computer Control Programming
Programmers use flowcharts to design the logic of complex programs before they even start to write any code. And so do we with flowol. Even better, flowol interprets our flowcharts into code so we can follow the logic directly from the flowchart. We simply drag and drop flowchart symbols and connect them together to make our logic flow.
It works like this: first, we choose a scene to animate. There are about 20 to choose from including
Christmas tree lights, a big wheel in a funfair, 2 train circuits, a greenhouse and a lighthouse. Each has inputs and outputs. For example, with the lighthouse, we can test whether it’s dark and if so, decide to turn on the light. It sounds simple but when there are 2 trains going round in opposite directions it gets very complicated indeed.
