First Roadshows of the Semester!!

Last week YWIC held four consecutive PicoCricket roadshows. It was a fantastic start to our roadshow season and we couldn't have asked for better students! This post will outline how YWiC conducts roadshows for middle school students. 

What is a roadshow? 

Roadshows have been the foundation for all of YWiC’s work with middle school students. They are presentations to students and are comprised of three parts: 

1. Raising awareness of the diversity and possibilities offered by the field of computing
2. Educating students in concepts of algorithmic design 
3. A hands-on project where concepts are put into practice 

Yay, computer science! 

Who conducts the roadshows?

YWiC has found that students are more engaged and are more comfortable asking questions when presentations are given by YWiC undergraduate research assistants. The research assistants serve as near-peer role models and mentors to the students.

YWiC research assistants - "We love roadshows!"

Everyone was interactive and we loved it.

What is the roadshow curriculum?

During the project phase of the roadshow, students are taught how to use PicoCricket Robotics. The PicoCricket kit includes small hardware pieces, sensors, lights, speaker, motor, and others. 

After introducing all of the pieces and their functions, the students build a base robot from the components.

Once the robot is built, we proceed to teach the student what it takes to program the PicoCrickets using PicoBlocks - the IDE. PicoBlocks is a great tool for students at this level, because all of the programming is drag-and-drop style. 

Teaching PicoBlocks! This is what a roadshow looks like on our end. 

The programming curriculum for this roadshow consisted of learning how to:

• use a light sensor or a sound sensor to power the motor of the PicoCricket
• use a display to show the value of light/sounds measured by the sensor 
• set an LED light color based on the amount of light/sound measured

What makes roadshows extra fun for students?

Not only do students get to experiment with programming hardware pieces, they get to add a creative element to their PicoCricket. YWiC provides students with the opportunity to use arts and crafts to spice up or make their project "prettier". 

Arts and crafts supplies provided.

Students always make the cutest arts and crafts figures!

The PicoCricket kit also includes Lego pieces - students are also fond of these. 

We had some awesome projects at the end of every session!

Its a dump truck!

Saturn!

Roadshow statistics!

Our first roadshows were a great success! We held four sessions for students from Snell Middle School, Vista Middle School, Deming Middle School, and Lynn Middle School. At the end of the day,  we had worked with over 100 students. We loved it and the students loved it - nothing gets better than that! :)