Enchanting…at home!
We programmed our Robot (aka, Shark Hunter) with Enchanting today:
I’ll admit it: the programming part of robot building has been my biggest hang-up in trying to do robots with my 4.5 year old. What if it was just way too beyond him? Would it be mommy entertaining her boys, with very little learning going on? I decided to liken it to story writing. Technically my boys can’t write stories down—in fact, they are still learning to hold a pencil properly. However, that doesn’t stop us from making stories! They come up with great ideas, I challenge them to do what they can mechanically (colouring pictures, writing down sounds of a word, etc), and we write a story. I was pleasantly surprised that programming with Enchanting involved the same levels of scaffolding! We discussed things the robot could do, I plugged in the programming blocks to the best of my ability, downloaded the program to the robot, troubleshot with the boys several dozen times, and celebrated when the robot finally did what we wanted it to…And then spent more time embellishing and having fun. In fact, with Enchanting,programming seems quite similar to writing a point-form story. Cool, eh?
My other hang-up was the technical aspect. I’m not scared of using computers—I’m certainly “plugged in” often enough during the day boongoogling. However, there are deeper level aspects of computer use that seem to go awry when I try them. Take, for instance, “downloads.” I’m never sure where things go that I download. And if I do find them, I generally have troubles opening them or getting them to work the way I think they should work. Thus I married Tech Support. To take care of all those fun things so I can blissfully wander the internet while he opens the proverbial doors for me, reaching the high stuff off the shelf, etc. Ahh, modern day chivalry in action!
But I digress. A lot.
When all was said and done, I only called Daddy Tech Support a couple of times (for issues such as, where do I find a cable to plug our Robot to the Computer and why my program outlined itself in red a couple of times)!
(I found a plug)
I also benefited from watching the Enchanting Intro video a few times, pausing the video so I could follow along:
The other trouble we ran into trying to program our shark hunter was, well, a very cute shark:
Being just a little too tricky to try out the program while a baby is attempting to capture and eat the robot, I put the cute baby to nap.
Then we set up an obstacle course (the tires in the picture are sharks), and embellished the bot until it rolled a bit, texted “Oh no, sharks”, played the theme from Jaws while dodging left and right spinning its “shark fighter”, played a triumphant tune and texted “I made it!”
A surprisingly easy, pleasant, and fun experience (and we haven’t even played with the sensors yet!)!