When the Woodland Hills School District partnered with VEX Robotics a couple of years ago, the plan wasn't just to create a full K-12 robotics curriculum. The larger goal was to take key educational concepts found in robotics and other aspects of STEM and help students apply them to other subjects. Elementary students have used the VEX 123 kits to reinforce positive reading and spelling habits, while the more complex robotics kits challenge students to work cooperatively and improve their communication skills.
For sixth graders at Dickson Preparatory STEAM Academy, the VEX IQ Competition robots have helped introduce the relationship between math and engineering. Over the first nine weeks, the students have been learning about gear ratios. They put those lessons to the test with the VEX Robotics Math Challenge, where they took what they learned about gear ratios and calculated wheel turns in order to create a fast code base. Working in teams, the students used that code to race against other teams. The student teams who developed the best code with the right calculations were the winners.
Check out this video and slideshow to see the robots in action.