Robot Mat Success Story: Socorro, NM: FLL Team 12861
These mats are amazing! The quality is durable. I love that we can easily throw these in the car for a demonstration.
Our team has been invited to the Mountain State Invitational. Today the kids went to the county commissioners meeting to ask for financial support. These mats helped the commissioners see what kids are capable of! The team was able to explain line following and counting in a way the commissioners could understand! We received a round of applause as the robot navigated the different mats.
As we left one of the commissioners came outside to let our team know they doubled our request for money! I accredit the kids for sure, but without the mats we would not have been able to give the visualization!
Thank you so very much! We will be using these mats in after school camps as well!
Gwen
Coach of team FLL 12861
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Robot Mat Success Story: Lafayette, Colorado
Peak to Peak Charter School uses our mats to enhance their Wonder Workshop experience!
Our robotics club had a ball using two of the new mats today. They used the color mat to code Ozobot. The city map was great for telling stories. They enjoyed combining Ollie, Sphero, and Dash into their story on the City Map.
Michelle
Peak to Peak Charter School
http://peaktopeak.org
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Robotics Mat Success Story: Colorado
We had our team kickoff, and the team was very intent on studying the training mat! The challenge: follow the curvy line. This was a difficult assignment, but rewarding as well! We plan to integrate many more training activities with this mat as the team learns how best to design and program the bot!
One of the biggest challenges was all of the lines on the mat. Certain areas were a challenge for the light sensor, as it was trying to follow the black curvy line.
With only 2 veterans returning this year, the majority of our team are rookies. These mats will help bring the kids up to speed and even teach the veterans a few new things! One of our goals this year is to try to use more of the sensors. The Robot Mats will help us to achieve that goal most effectively!
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Success Story: Florida
Denny Zahrt, Apopka, Florida
HCECF's BRICKschoolers coach
3 FLL teams
The RobotMats are awesome! Order yours NOW. The kids who've used these so far are wondering when we are getting the other two. They are high on the dream big wish list for this season.
This is by far the most effective way we have found to encourage sensor use. These will take a team from a "point and shoot" approach to programming to a more sophisticated sensor based approached.
The rookie team took to the mat well because there are so many straight-forward programming challenges from "follow the line" to "stop on black". The veteran team members were especially excited about refining their turning precision with the use of the compass.
One of the members from our veteran team has amended their advice on what it takes to coach from "kids, legos, a place to meet and snacks" to "kids, legos, training mat, a place to meet and snacks."
As a coach, the Techbrick Robomat is my new favorite "get the kids programming fast" trick.
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Success Story: Hawaii
IRST IMPRESSIONS:
We found the mat very helpful. For the new kids, they got to see what an FLL mat will look like and how the robots will use the mat in the new challenge. What the kids got excited about were the thick solid lines that allowed them to test their programs. It boosted their confidence that they actually for the first time wrote their own line following programs that worked.
They loved the fact that the solid lines run right around the mat and they enjoyed watching their handiwork do its paces around the entire mat. They are still a bit stumped by why their line following does not work on the narrow lines but we think/hope they'll figure it out with more practice. The younger kids liked the round shapes on the mats that allowed them to create their own models using those circles as landmarks.
We liked the suggested activities that came with the mat. They were a good range from very simple to very difficult. With the activities, the beginners learned the programming quickly and the slightly more experienced felt confident in knowing what to do already. The later suggested activities proved to be very challenging for kids and coaches alike. We had no clue what to do!
Since Techbrick was very helpful in showing us how to do a more complicated program, the kids and coaches can work on that harder skill next and we can then feel happy that we've gained a new skill. We spent an entire day with the mat and still had not finished all the activities but we look forward to trying the harder activities at our next meeting.
The mat is a motivating tool to our kids. The kids had never seen a mat like this and all the markings got them interested in trying their programs and robots on them. The mat (and the helpful staff and kids at Techbrick) brought the joy of learning back for us. Thank you Techbrick for sharing your expertise and for making the learning experience a fun one. The "old" and new kids want to keep doing robotics
Alice Kimura
4H / Wailuku Elementary School
Wailuku, HI
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Success Story: Pennsylvania
Dave and Anne Mayers, New Park, PA
FLL Team 58
What a great training tool! Last year was our first year in FLL (team members and coaches). While we all learned a great deal, we did not explore the use of sensors that much. This mat has allowed us time in the “off season” to become more familiar with how the different sensors work, and how you can create a much more versatile program, giving you a smarter robot using less programming blocks.
Instead of every mission relying on dead reckoning and perfect starting alignment, the robot can assess the environment and decide which way to go based on the parameters it was given. The best part is that this can be done, without the time pressure associated with an upcoming tournament.
We feel confident that with what we have learned from using this tool, we can build on what we learned last year and have a great second season! Highly recommend it.
Jordan, Kaitlyn, and Nick explore new programming concepts with the RoboMats general challenge mat.
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