Winter, Spring and Summer Workshops
Winter, Spring and Summer 2008 — Stratolab presents week-long full-day workshops combining our two favorite subjects—video game programming and robotics. Both subjects involve imagining, designing and building your ideas. Video game programming will use the Scratch system developed at MIT or Stratolab's MakeBot system. Programming fosters creativity and teaches logic and problem solving skills. Robotics also involves computer programming, but adds mechanical engineering, and understanding of physical structures, to the mix. Robots will be built using Lego's Mindstorms NXT kit.
Open-Ended Problems
Real world problems are never multiple-choice. They require research, innovative thinking, and teamwork. Computer programming and robotics are excellent tools to develop critical thinking skills. How to design a challenging video game which is not too easy or too hard, and to do it before the end of summer is an open-ended problem with conflicting constraints. Unlike multiple-choice tests, writing video games and building fly swatting robots is a lot more fun.
Students begin at 9:00 am building robots until noon. Then a walk over to Central Park for lunch and fresh air. A game of ball or frisbee gets the blood flowing. Then back to the laboratory to write video games until 4:00 pm.
Practicalities
| Equipment: | One Apple Macintosh computer and one Lego Mindstorms NXT kit is provided for each student to use during the course. |
| Ages: | Girls and boys, ages 10 and up. Sessions are designated for younger (10-12), and older (12-up) students. |
| Size: | Classes are limited to 10 students. This gives each student plenty of one-on-one attention. |
| Level: | This course revolves around student-developed projects and is self-paced. Beginners as well as students with some programming or robotics experience are welcome. Students may sign up for multiple weeks to continue their projects or start new ones. |
| Food: | We provide healthy snacks during the day such as fruit, nuts (no peanuts though), cheese and cookies. You should bring a lunch each day. And due to allergies, please don't bring anything with peanuts. |
| Times: | Monday through Friday 9:00 am - 4:00 pm |
| Who: | Winston Wolff is the coach for this course. |
Sign Up
To get a registration form or if you have any questions, just contact me via phone or email.Stratolab
(646) 827-2242
