I just got a $300 grant from my school district’s educational support foundation, the Friends of Chimacum! I submitted a proposal to purchase a couple of Sphero Robotic App Controlled Balls!
I saw a Science teacher at this year’s NCCE conference playing with one of those and he was telling me how he used them with his students to study physics. I just had to steal that idea! The plan for my proposal revolved around using the app-controlled robotic ball to explore Newton’s Laws of Motion. Kids would design an experiment, then program the Sphero to conduct their experiment and collect data. If the Sphero doesn’t work as intended the kids can troubleshoot the code on the app to see what went wrong (at least I think that’s how it works, I’ll find out more once I buy the Sphero and play with it this summer).
Kids will practice programming the ball using the app as well as designing motion experiments as well as collecting and analyzing data! I’m also purchasing some rubber padding so if kids want to test out Newton’s First Law of Motion they can have the Sphero run into unbalanced forces without damaging the ball! I’m excited to see what we can do with this thing!
