More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education.
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For three years in a row, my class was able to learn robotics well enough to send a team to the UC Davis C-STEM Day robotics competition. Then, last year, our computer lab became obsolete and was dismantled. We tried as best we could with what few computers I have in class, but we couldn't cover enough of our curriculum to make it worthwhile to enter the competition.
Our robotics curriculum is a math curriculum that helps 6th graders with pre-algebra as well as preparing them for robotics competitions. Raspberry Pi will work with the Chromebooks we already have and the free C-STEM software that UC-Davis uses. By adding ten more units to the four we already have, we can have two students per Raspberry Pi unit. This should be enough to get us rolling again.
My robotics program provides a fun way to learn pre-algebra concepts. We work in groups and use C/C++ coding language to get robots to solve simple problems. We start with pushing a block over a line. We then turn the problem into a friendly competition. So the group that gets closest to the line with their block while still crossing the line wins. Using calculations to a millionth of an inch, students have been able to get their block within 1/32nd of an inch or close to a millimeter from the line! We also dress up our robots for our Linkbot Disco where groups program two robots to dance using blocking and non-blocking commands. We then film the robots dancing with a multi-colored disco ball. Finally, we practice previous problems from UC Davis C-STEM Day. We take all of the code created by the class and send it with five students to the C-STEM day competition. So the whole class participates in the competition.
About my class
For three years in a row, my class was able to learn robotics well enough to send a team to the UC Davis C-STEM Day robotics competition. Then, last year, our computer lab became obsolete and was dismantled. We tried as best we could with what few computers I have in class, but we couldn't cover enough of our curriculum to make it worthwhile to enter the competition.
Our robotics curriculum is a math curriculum that helps 6th graders with pre-algebra as well as preparing them for robotics competitions. Raspberry Pi will work with the Chromebooks we already have and the free C-STEM software that UC-Davis uses. By adding ten more units to the four we already have, we can have two students per Raspberry Pi unit. This should be enough to get us rolling again.
My robotics program provides a fun way to learn pre-algebra concepts. We work in groups and use C/C++ coding language to get robots to solve simple problems. We start with pushing a block over a line. We then turn the problem into a friendly competition. So the group that gets closest to the line with their block while still crossing the line wins. Using calculations to a millionth of an inch, students have been able to get their block within 1/32nd of an inch or close to a millimeter from the line! We also dress up our robots for our Linkbot Disco where groups program two robots to dance using blocking and non-blocking commands. We then film the robots dancing with a multi-colored disco ball. Finally, we practice previous problems from UC Davis C-STEM Day. We take all of the code created by the class and send it with five students to the C-STEM day competition. So the whole class participates in the competition.