Would you like to create your own 3D movie? Would you like to program a robot to create spin art or kick a ball? In this session you will use free software from CMU called Alice to allow you to make 3D movies. And, you will use LEGO NXT kits to create spin art, kick a ball, or follow a black line. For more information on Alice see http://www.alice.org. For more information on LEGO robots see http://mindstorms.lego.com/. You will learn the basics of object-oriented programming: classes, objects, and methods (behaviors). You will also learn some basic computing concepts: repetition (loops), conditionals, and variables.
15 minutes explain the LEGO NXT kits (explain that 2x means 2 of that part, explain the sizes are the number of studs on the lego parts and show how to measure axles, show the 3 different black connectors that look similar and explain how to tell them apart, show how to use the parts list to find which bin a part can be found in). See Introduction to LEGO NXT
2 hours try some easy things building and programming projects listed at http://nxtprograms.com/projects1.html. Scroll to the bottom to see the difficulty ratings. Try things like the top spinner, mini-golf, baseball batter, and spin art.
1 hour do the first 7 challenges that come with the software and try to program the robot to go through coures outlined in blue painters tape - First NXT challenges
30 minutes - Show them how to do more than one thing at a time (Do Together). Show them how to change the duration of the animation. Show them how to create their own methods in Alice http://ice-web.cc.gatech.edu/dl/?q=node/276
30 minutes - challenge the students to create their own methods and show them
30 minutes - talk about storyboarding (planning your story and breaking it into methods) let the kids work on storybording
