Drilling and Cutting and Soldering...Oh My!

There are 3 groups in the Robotics Club, with 4 kids in each group. All groups have finished building their ROVs with the PVC pipes. The had to measure and mark the pipes, drill holes, and cut the pipes.

They are all working on the motors now. They had to cover the motors with electrical tape, which surprisingly took a long time because of how precise they had to be.
Next, they opened up the tether cord, which looks like an Ethernet cable, and connected each wire to a motor. Each colored wire has 2 smaller wires twisted together- a solid and a striped wire. One has to go to the positive terminal and the other has to go to the negative terminal on the motor. The first group to cover their motors with electrical tape didn't carefully read the directions that said to mark the positive terminal before you tape them up, so they had to take the tape off and start over. There are a lot of directions to follow and the students are beginning to realize how important it is to read over everything before diving in.

After they have all the motors connected to the wires they need to solder the wires. This is the step we stopped at on Friday and will continue with this week. We watched a soldering tutorial video and began trying it out. There is only 1 soldering iron in the tool box so they will have to share and take turns! Good thing I'm a kindergarten teacher too, right?

Please check out our KickStarter page to donate money so we can buy VEX Robotics parts! We only have 12 days left to raise money. 

Kickstarter

We are raising money for VEX Robotics and need sponsors! If you would like to donate any amount, please visit our Kickstarter page. With the VEX Robotics kits we will be able to build some really cool robots! 

Welcome

Robotics Club has started at Imagine East Mesa and it's off to a great start! I have 12 fantastic and energetic students who are more than excited to be building robots. There are four 8th graders who are in one group and eight 7th graders who are split into 2 groups. We got a grant from SeaPerch, so we are starting with underwater robotics. The students learned all about ROVs- Remotely Operated Vehicles. They drew 4 sketches and as a group discussed the best solution. Then they all drew the final sketch that they agreed upon. We have 72 inches of PVC pipe to work with, so the students wrote measurements in their sketches and made sure they had enough pipe. They marked their pipes after measuring. After they drill all the holes they will cut the pipes where they marked them. Once I get permissions from the students to be featured on my blog, you will see some exciting pictures!