Dash robots

My school recently purchased 20 Dash robots so classes can implement STEM projects and coding in their classrooms.

I’m passionate about future focused learning and couldn’t think of a nicer way to engage students in learning using tech. I am absolutely excited to finally have these robots in my school. My plan is to have 5 robots for each stage.

My journey started in 2015 when I was interested in purchasing these after seeing them online. My principal asked for a demo before purchasing but because of the busy end of year, it occurred in 2016. Jason from Modern Teaching Aids came in to demonstrate these robots using the iPad apps ‘Blockly for Dash & Dots robots’ and ‘Go for Dash & Dots robots’. He was nice enough to allow me to borrow the robots for a few week to test it out with my students to see if they would like it. Finally in 2017 we purchased 20 of the Dash Robots without Dot as it came in an educational pack.

The unfortunate part for me was that these arrived a week before I was to go on leave for surgery. Therefore, I wasn’t able to run professional learning for staff and hand these out to be used in term 2. I will be presenting robotics in the classroom for staff development day in term 3. I’ll also run some professional learning and in class tech support for classes who want implement these robots into their learning.

We introduced Dash to Tech Club students as we have entered the ‘Young ICT Explorers competition’. They love Dash and can’t wait to use it for their STEM project for the competition. I’ll be blogging more about this throughout our journey.

Before I went on leave I got my year 5 class to test it out to see what they thought. They love Dash and named him ‘Dashy’. We spent my last week programming Dash to move around the classroom and compete with Sphero (my personal robots which I will also blog about!)

On my last day with them, students separated into groups where some used Dash and others used Sphero robots. They were given free choice to be creative with the robots. The group with Dash beamed with excitement as they versed Sphero in a soccer match. This is just the start, I can’t wait to see what amazing things they do once I’m back and are given more time to plan and explore.