Coding Robots (with Finch)

This course immerses students in the world of robotics, leveraging the Finch robot to explore programming, sensors, and robot behavior.

Duration: 30 hours or ~9 weeks
Grades: 6th-8th
Level: Beginner

About this course

Students will learn about robotics through engaging in immersive activities like learning to drive the Finch, creating art, playing music, and developing mini-games, culminating in a final project that integrates various skills learned throughout the course. The course emphasizes development of coding skills in Python, hands-on learning, creativity, problem-solving, and shows them real-world applications of concepts that they’ve learned in a prior introductory CS class.

Students will:

Demonstrate and apply fundamental concepts of robotics, including sensors and input/output mechanisms.
Use Python to program the Finch robot to perform basic and advanced operations.
Develop computational thinking and problem-solving skills through interactive projects using the Finch robot.
Articulate the history and impact of robotics on society.

How this course is structured

The course is divided into 4 units, each consisting of several lessons. Each lesson consists of steps. Each step consists of an instructional video as well as a practice activity for the student. Each step is designed to take no longer than 8-10 minutes to complete and each lesson is designed to take no more than 60 minutes to complete.

Additionally, there are projects after some units, which allow students to build an application tying together concepts they have learned so far.