by Laura Dobos
A few years ago when I was introduced to LEGO robotics I was blown away by the idea that, for a reasonable cost, someone could actually own a transformable, customizable and programmable robot. Initially, I used NXT, however, more recently I have been using the EV3, which is the newest generation of LEGO Mindstorm. These two models are very similar and work in almost the same way, however the EV3 software is more sophisticated and streamlined versus the NXT software. Using LEGO robotics with students has been really enjoyable, because not only does it instil the concept of computational/sequential thinking, but it allows for students to express their creativity with their builds as well as the story or concept behind their robot. Mindstorm is the software that has been developed to work alongside the robots, and I absolutely love it. Through Mindstorm, LEGO provides tutorials so that even a novice to coding can go through the most rudimentary concepts and understand what they are doing. Mindstorm is a drag and drop platform, which means that the movements and commands are chosen and linked together to create the code; there is no coding language knowledge needed to understand and use the LEGO robotics.
LEGO robotics is a tech tool that is fun and gives students an opportunity to learn about coding in a way that gives them a hands on, real world experience. Some connections that can be made to curriculum include the concept of sentences and sentence structure, with the idea of proofreading and problem solving to complete a task with the robot. Engineering and mathematics are also easily connected to the functions and movements of the robots.
LEGO robotics are available for purchase through LEGO.com (https://www.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms), and there is an education page for classroom incorporation (https://education.lego.com/en-us). The Mindstorm download is available through their website as well.
