8-10th grade 1-week "Tetrix" camp using leJOS

[zbuhman]

So today was the conclusion of the first "Tetrix Robotics" camp of this summer; I was the instructor, and of course I had them using leJOS to program their robots (the other instructors use Labview). This is both the first week I've been an "instructor", and the first week leJOS has been used in the curriculum.

Here's a group of boys in 8th grade playing with three Tetrix servo motors, and manipulating a can http://youtu.be/epEcalArguo . Their code (same used in that video): http://sprunge.us/RiHZ?java .

The pair adjacent to them in the lab we were given wrote this code: http://sprunge.us/XOfL?java , and in the "class" of 18, those 4 by far outperformed the rest (we jokingly accused them of some sort of conspiracy).

So when I arrived in the lab early on Monday, I had pre-built a root filesystem containing my leJOS package (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=60090) along with other necessities (vim, xmonad, etc..), which I served over NFS. I booted the entire lab using that PXE magic, using dnsmasq to perform the DHCP and TFTP nonsense.

The point being, they all had the same root filesystem, which they utilized much more well than I expected. The original authors of the "PuppetMaster" class shared it with the rest of the people in that camp, which resulted in a rather destructive "sumo" competition: http://youtu.be/Y9F-8z0Y76w , nuts and bolts flying everywhere.

And only one group noticed (or at least told me they noticed; I didn't openly volunteer its existence) viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3332 so I'd say the week went fairly well. Thanks again leJOS developers!

[gloomyandy]

Oh my I felt for those NXTs in the final video! Looks like a fun time! Big kudos to you for taking it on!

Andy