[Design and Technology] Which way to go with robotics?

[Travis Burroughs]

John,

I have worked with the Lego Mindstorm before and it is an excellent option
for students in years 5 - 7. Anything past that, I find that students start
to loose interest in it. If you already have some and you're working with
younger students i would use it. The Lego programming software is pretty
clunky so I would also consider upgrading the firmware to robot-c for lego.


If you are buying new robots I would look into VEX the IQ platform for
younger students, it is much more versatile than the lego and there are
multiple programming options. For year 8 - 12 students I would use VEX EDR
if you want to use a kit.

I have also had great success with First Robotics and Arduino. First
robotics stuff can get very expensive, but you can build some very cool
robots. Arduino bots can be done for cheap but you will have to do a lot
more trouble shooting. If you are interested DATTA Vic is going to release
my $15 Arduino robot plans to their website in the next few months.

Travis Burroughs
Camberwell High School
DATTA Victoria Treasurer/Robotics Coordinator

On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 1:07 PM, Louk, John W <
louk.john.w at edumail.vic.gov.au> wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> Thanks for your replies. You gave me a lot to research.
>
> With regard to robotics, no one has mentioned Lego mindstorm? Does anyone
> use it, my school is very keen to head that way. They currently have some
> very old kits, I think nxt which used serial connections and the software
> was compatible with windows vista. So they are looking at EV3.
>
> Thoughts, ideas, is VEX better?
>
> Cheers
>
> Wayne Louk=
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