LEGO Mindstorms

After waiting for several weeks for our curriculum to arrive it felt like Christmas when it finally did. We had an unboxing, but I am afraid that one item for learning stole the show this time. It overshadowed any books that were in the box. I was kind of sad, but really most of the books we got were just the next level up in most of their current curriculum. Not as exciting for young boys as perhaps a LEGO Mindstorms set would be.

I really didn't need to buy a lot of actual curriculum for Aric (because we have so much already), so he had a lot of charter funds that could be used for something more fun but also educational. I thought that the Mindstorms would be a great choice for him. He's not old enough to do the LEGO robotics club at the charter school yet (5th and above), so I thought he could have this year to play with one of his own until next year when he can join.

He dived right in and built something that wasn't even in the book it came with. I guess there are all kinds of other builds online, so he picked the robot looking one. I can't even remember what it's called.

He figured out how to make it go with an app, but it can also be programmed. I might have to sit down and do this with him because I don't even know most of what it does! I was amazed to see how much he could figure out on his own.

He took a couple hours one morning to build this snake. He calls it "Nagini" because he is obsessed with Harry Potter right now, but I believe it's called the vip3r (viper). He has programmed it to strike when something is in front of it. It has gotten my leg a few times!

We'll see how long he stays interested in this. I think he will keep doing more fun projects with it for a while now. It'll be fun to see what he comes up with!