One hour Pleo workshop
Remember to take good pictures. Examples can be found here: http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt/2242.
Ages: 2nd grade through 5th grade
Equipment: laptop and Pleo for half the number of students (we usually have them work in groups of 2 people). Clothes for the Pleos.
Materials: extra charged battery per Pleo, SD card. The SD cards should be pre loaded with a personality (and check that it works on the Pleo it is with). The batteries take 4 hours to charge and don't hold a charge for long so it is best to charge them the day before the workshop or the day of the workshop.
The personalities are in these zip files:
personalities 1
personalities
To install a personality just copy the .url file to the SD card. Girls like the lovestruck one. The holiday one is also good. Please note that which type of personality to use depends on the operating system that is loaded on the Pleo. These probably don't work on the newer Pleos (the Pleo rb), but I haven't checked.
We don't do pre and post surveys with 1 hour workshops. But, be sure to take good pictures and movies. See How to take good pictures at our ICE events for more details.
5 minutes: Introduce the workers and say why you like computing.
25 minutes:
Introduce the Pleos and talk about robots, computers, and artificial intelligence and how the robotics field is fast growing. Show http://www.cc.gatech.edu/social-machines/ and explain that this research group is working on how to teach robots by showing them how to do things. Show the sensors http://ice-web.cc.gatech.edu/dl/?q=node/68. Show the kids how to turn the Pleos on and off. Show them how to put the SD cards in the Pleos. Have them interact with the Pleos both without the SD cards and with them. Warn them that the Pleos take much longer to start when you put the SD cards in (about 10 seconds). Let them dress the Pleos. Show them how to press the area around the leg to force the Pleo to lift the leg. Have them put the Pleos near each other and see if they start calling to each other (without the SD cards in).
20 minutes:
Ask the girls to make up a story about the Pleo. Or do some CS unplugged activities like the card flip magic http://csunplugged.org/error-detection, binary counting http://csunplugged.org/binary-numbers, treasure hunt http://csunplugged.org/finite-state-automata or flowchart hopscotch http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt/1356
10 minutes: giant dinosaur robots http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqR8vDLp_9w and this video shows 5 robots that are based on animals http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/robots/4308043 and this one is a robot mule http://www.technewsdaily.com/16060-military-robot-mule-fall.html (skip the first 20 seconds)
Link to this Page