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The Journey Begins
Wizbots is completely hands-on and project-based, where kids work at their own pace. Our Inventor Mentors provide a small amount of direction at the beginning, then provide just-in-time instruction to introduce skills, ideas, and techniques as kids are ready. Within a framework, kids are empowered to choose what they work on and how they work on it. Kids earn Wizbands as they progress through Wizbots levels of competence.
Level 1: Lab Certified
The student is productive in the lab after being introduced to the basic equipment, ideas, and ways of working.
Achievables
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| 8 | 10 | 11 |
Knowledge Nuggets
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| 4 | 4 | 1 | 5 |
Level 2: Explorer
The student has been exposed to a wide variety of materials and types of projects. Can build fundamental structures, incorporate core sensors, and successfully program working robots. Has a track record of completing projects.
Achievables
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| 12 | 10 | 13 |
Knowledge Nuggets
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| 0 | 7 | 0 | 4 |
Level 3: Apprentice
This level introduces new programming techniques, and basic mechanisms, enabling more sophisticated robot behavior. The student also becomes adept in the basics through repeated application in diverse contexts.
Achievables
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| 12 | 15 | 17 |
Knowledge Nuggets
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| 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
Level 4: Maker
The student can program robots that interact with their environment in more sophisticated ways via advanced sensors. Can troubleshoot his or her own program. The student is fully independent in lab, capable of bringing a project from conception through iteration to completion.
Achievables
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| 15 | 15 | 19 |
Knowledge Nuggets
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| 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
Level 5: Imagineer
The student has mastered intermediate material, and has a consistent track record of EPIC performance in the lab: Experimental, Persistent, Imaginative, and Collaborative.
Achievables
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| 15 | 15 | 23 |
Knowledge Nuggets
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| 0 | 7 | 3 | 0 |
Level 6: Wizard
This level introduces more sophisticated programming techniques. Additional mechanisms are used to enable a greater range of motion. Advanced sensors are introduced which drive growth in programming skill in an engaging manner.
Achievables
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| 15 | 15 | 37 |
Knowledge Nuggets
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| 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
Level 7: Master
This level introduces a number of sophisticated programming elements that require greater fluency in math. The Wizbots Master has developed fluency in all subject areas and has a track record in applying this knowledge in creative and inventive ways to challenging projects.
Achievables
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| 15 | 15 | 43 |
Knowledge Nuggets
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| 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
Achievables
Advancement is based on (a) amount of lab time, (b) completed projects, (c) earning WizChips in the lab for EPIC behavior.
Levels
The Path To Mastery is different for everyone - but it has a common structure, and a carefully thought out sequence of milestones that build on each other. Levels are waypoints in the Path To Mastery. Leveling up is a big deal, and we award our own special Wizbands for each level accomplished. It is a journey, not a race. We track where kids are throughout the year, and kids can pick up where they left off from season to season and year to year.
Projects
Wizbots is project-based, and every project is a new creation. Sometimes it is an off-the-wall contraption, sometimes a technical challenge, and sometimes it is part of a multi-robot team game. This mix allows us to flexibly mix technical, creative and social elements in our lab environment. All completed projects are recorded on video and uploaded to wizbots.com. With each completed work, kids get credit towards advancement on their journey. Minimum numbers must be met to level up, and they must cover all the Knowledge Nuggets for that level.
EPICs
We emphasize EPIC (Experimental, Persistent, Imaginative, Collaborative) qualities for our young imagineers. We celebrate these qualities as they are demonstrated, and recognize them with our own specially designed WizChips. They add to the fun, and reinforce the message. WizChips are cashed in when students level up.
Lab Time
Every lab builds experience. We track accrued lab time, hour by hour, for all our summer camps and after school programs. Time in the lab is a requirement to level up.
Knowledge Nuggets
Knowledge nuggets are bite-size chunks of knowledge, skill, and experience within various subject areas essential to create a well-rounded Imagineer in the modern world. They are designed to be taught on-demand as kids are ready to use them. Different knowledge nuggets apply at different levels in the Path To Mastery, and students must complete approved projects that demonstrate their use.
Imagineering
Imagineer: One who brings ideas to reality. For the first few years we were not quite sure how to describe what we do at Wizbots. It was robotics, but emphasized creativity and design. It was design thinking, but involved lots of engineering. It was whacky and fanciful, but also techy and practical. Eventually we found the right word, first used in the 1940s, and later made famous by Disney. That word is Imagineering and it reflects the synthesis of imagination and engineering that make Wizbots unique.
Programming
Programming should be for everyone. It is the path to control machines, and is helpful in almost any aspect of 21st century work, and many aspects of 21st century play. Robotics is about the most fun you can have programming there is - and a wonderful gateway for youngsters! If kids pick up programming, they will see the practical applications of mathematics straight away, and they will be empowered to create things in and out of the lab.
Mechanisms
Robotics is all about moving parts. Mechanisms are parts in motion. Designing effective mechanisms to achieve desired robot behaviors can be very challenging, but it can also give great insights into the principles of physics, and produce really fun robots. We teach the kids core mechanisms, used widely in engineering, so they can expand their tool-box as Imagineers.
Structures
The Robotics Lab is full of superb building materials. We include loads of technical LEGO, but add to it such a range of equipment that allows really big, and really diverse structures to be made, and made to move. Building comes naturally to kids, but learning to build well needs a bit of experience and guidance. We cover some important structural design patterns to help them along.
For the first few years we were not quite sure how to describe what we do at Wizbots. It was robotics, but emphasized creativity and design. It was design thinking, but involved lots of engineering. It was whacky and fanciful, but also techy and practical.
Eventually we found the right word, first used in the 1940s, and later made famous by Disney. That word is Imagineering and it reflects the synthesis of imagination and engineering that make Wizbots unique.
Wizbots is not just fun and games - what we do is based on solid principles and pedagogy described well in this paper by Mitch Resnick of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Digital Media Lab.
Most kids and parents we talk to think robots are cool. We think so too! Robotics - the art and science of building robots - is even cooler.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill - never before, in the field of innovation, has it been possible for so much to be done by so many for so little. Advances in computers, sensors, and wireless communications have made it possible to build an unprecedented range of machines that can move about and interact with their environment, on their own or with assistance.
Robotics is the ultimate integrative discipline, blending science, technology, engineering, math, and art in what is essentially a creative process of envisioning an end goal and bringing it to life.
The skills developed through robotics offer a foundation for invention that no other field of study can provide. And because it is cool and fun, learning happens without even knowing it. That is why we focus on robotics at Wizbots.
Programming should be for everyone. It is the path to control machines, and is helpful in almost any aspect of 21st century work, and many aspects of 21st century play. Robotics is about the most fun you can have programming there is - and a wonderful gateway for youngsters! If kids pick up programming, they will see the practical applications of mathematics straight away, and they will be empowered to create things in and out of the lab.
In our Robotics Labs, kids learn to program in Java, one of the world’s most popular and powerful programming languages. We developed a Java-based robot programming work-bench especially for kids, called the Wizbench. Our goal in developing the Wizbench was two-fold. We wanted to create a tool that would:
- make Java easily accessible to young students
- provide a better, more powerful coding experience allowing advanced students even more possibilities than LEGO robotics software
With the Wizbench, kids create starter projects from our standard templates. They can write programs with a specialized text editor, optimized for easy use by kids for programming their robots. We also built in lots of fun stuff for using sound and images, and with 1 button click they can run their programs on their robot.
