Tech Sandbox Lite

Did you have fun in the Tech Sandbox?  Do you wish you could play with these tools at your leisure?  Now you can.  Here are some free (or cheap) tools that mimic the Tech Sandbox tools.  You can use these tools for your ILPs.

1.  3-D Printing

The 3-D printer is definitely cool!  They are all the rage in library world as part of the Maker Space trend.  TinkerCad is a free online software for making 3-D printing designs.  Try it out as one of your ILPs.  If you are so inclined, there are places that will print your design for you (not free but fun).

https://www.tinkercad.com/ 

2.   Oculus Rift

The 3-D virtual reality provided by the Oculus Rift offers many opportunities for instruction.  But you don't need the expensive equipment to play.  Google Cardboard is a 1.0 version that can be purchased affordably.  

https://www.google.com/get/cardboard/

 3.  Sphero Robotic Ball

The Sphero ball is a great tool to introduce students to coding, a popular skill taught in many schools.  But you don't need the robotic ball to learn coding.  Here are two websites my Robotics Club students use to learn drag-and-drop coding.  The first one toggles to java coding as well.  Try your hand at coding for an ILP.

Hour of Code:  https://code.org/learn

Scratch:  https://scratch.mit.edu/ 

In 2016, HB 0887  Computer Coding Instruction (Adkins) - credit in lieu of foreign language or math - passed, on House Calendar Read the bill here

If you really like the robotic ball, Ozobot is a small version:

http://www.slj.com/2016/02/opinion/test-drive/tiny-ozobot-gets-kids-into-block-based-programming-test-drive#_

Coding is half the fun of the Robotics Club.  First, students build a robot with Legos.  Then they program the robot to perform certain tasks.  Here is a link to some sample projects.

http://www.nxtprograms.com/projects2.html 

And finally, here is a video of my son's group's last project, a striking viper.  They are beginners.  Advanced robot designers make very complex programs and compete.