Hunting for the Balloon
Our first activity with Bee-Bots is to teach
students to estimate the distance between an object and Bee-Bot and then
program Bee-Bot to go near the object without hitting it. We used a
bright yellow balloon that matched the Bee-Bot as the object. My
students like this activity very much and, of course, at the end they
try to pop the balloon.
During the activity, students suggested measuring
the distance between two Bee-Bot footsteps to be sure to not hit the
balloon. This led us to create a big map with squares that lets the
students experiment with distances and angles. We have created a game
called “The maze of diamonds” where the students move the Bee-Bot around
the walls to pick up some colored stones.
After a while some students begin to write Bee-Bot
commands on a sheet of paper to remember long paths. This lets us begin
to define a vocabulary to write commands (forward x, back x, right and
left). The vocabulary help us to work on programs with Logo and leads
the children to draw lines on the screen. My students have began to
learn that an error can be positive. When Bee-Bot doesn’t do what they
want, they try and analyze their procedures for moving Bee-Bot to find
at which point it didn’t do what they intended. Being able to repeat
Bee-Bot’s program infinitely by pressing the GO button is a big help
in this debugging process.
Contact Information
| Name | Eric Sciolli |
| Position | Special Needs Teacher |
| School | Scuola Speciale |
| Location | Morbio Inferiore, Switzerland |
| Address | Via Vacallo 7, 6834 Morbio Inferiore, Switzerland |
| eric.sciolli@sunrise.ch | |
| Tags | Bee-Bot, Logo, Europe |
| Age | Special Needs |