Hill Top Preparatory School

Matt, Alex and Ted are hard at work on their robot

Thomas Forstik — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:35:04 +0000

Matt, Alex, and Ted are the youngest team we have had in the Robotics activity. They are doing a great job however. They have also taken on a very ambitious project, to build the Alpha Rex!

Here are some photos of the building process. We hope to have more updates from the laboratory soon…

Matt during the building of the Alpha Rex

Alex poses with the top half of the Alpha Rex

Ted working on the Alpha Rex

Jake and Colin have completed the Claw Striker Robot

Thomas Forstik — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 14:10:12 +0000

Jake and Colin took on a project that was medium difficulty to build, but very difficult to program. After running the original program, they decided they were not entirely satisfied with the way the striker could hit targets. They spent a few class periods re-programming, testing, re-programming, testing…until they had tweaked it to hit the target consistently each time. Also, Matt suggested an improvement to the actual striking weapon, which Jake and Colin ended up using in the final design.

Jake and Colin pose with their Claw Striker robot

Justin and Robbie Complete their Shooter-Bot

Thomas Forstik — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 13:32:15 +0000

Justin and Robbie have finished a robot that helps to protect your room. It has a motion detector and a shooting mechanism. Once it detects a target, it locks on, gives an auditory warning for the invader to leave the premises, then fires two shots in quick succession. The warning does not really allow the invader enough time to step away, but after all…shooting at the target is part of the fun, right?

Robbie and Justin pose with their Shooter-Bot robot.

Students in Multimedia Class Create Text-Based Games

Thomas Forstik — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:18:43 +0000

Multimedia students Joe and David have been working with a program called Haxic, to create text-based games.

Students in Advanced Computers class create animated gifs

Thomas Forstik — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:50:08 +0000

Students Francis and Gareth have been working on a new project using a program called Pivot to create animated gifs. The program is set up similar to a cartoon animation environment, in which the characters can be changed slightly at each successive stage, to give the appearance of fluid motion.

See a recent project created by Francis (click on the figure below to see the animation)

New Scratch games in development

Thomas Forstik — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:27:42 +0000

Drake is working on a new tank fighter game. Here are some screen shots from the editing environment of Scratch. This will be a multi-level game. The four round points in the corners are the enemy spawning points.The left column gives the program options. The middle column is the actual program being put together for the game. The top right field is the game play environment. Beneath that (bottom right) is where the various sprites are located.

Screen Shots from Drake’s game…

Scratch programming environment

Screen shot of game play window

Karl is working on a side-scroller game, using a projectile code to have the main character fire at his enemies. The characters are inspired by the novel The Great Gatsby.

Screen Shots from Karl’s game…

Trebuchet Launch (mini version)

Thomas Forstik — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:14:08 +0000

Dr. Schindler showed the activity group how a trebuchet is designed. He then conducted a live firing in the science room. This trebuchet has been tuned to deliver consistently predictable results.

Watch the demonstration

Robotics and Rocketry Activity (2nd Semester)

Thomas Forstik — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:47:54 +0000

Students in the 2nd Semester Activity are currently building a Zippy Bot. Once that is completed, we will add a bumper and some touch-sensor programming to create the Bumper Bot.

See photos of students working on their robots.

Max and Chris work on their Zippy Bot.

Colin programs his Zippy Bot.

Jake programs his Zippy Bot.

Dr. Schindler organizes the various parts of the NXT Kit.

Some of the building blocks of the NXT Kit.

Brian creates a cool new program for his Zippy Bot.

Max working on synchronizing his computer to his Zippy Bot.

Max looking for the last few parts to complete his bumper assembly.

Robin looks on with eager anticipation.

…or maybe he is just wondering when he is going to get his dinner…?

Robin takes time out to pose with Max and Chris's Zippy Bot.

Robotics Dragster Competition

Thomas Forstik — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:41:33 +0000

We had two dragsters for the competition.

Jake built his following the step-by-step directions from the NXT Programs website. Jake’s dragster ran the course in just under 9 seconds.

Jake with his NXT Dragster

A second group, comprised of team members Matt, Kevin, Josh, and Elan created a dragster using their own ideas about gearing and acceleration. Their dragster ran the course in just over 5 seconds.

Matt and Kevin with their NXT Dragster

Mrs. Schwartz Hosts Jeopardy Challenge

Thomas Forstik — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:38:59 +0000

Middle School math teacher Mrs. Schwartz uses a unique interactive tool to help her students when she feels ”they need a change of pace.” It’s a classroom-based Jeopardy game that allows students to participate in a simulated game show, and compete with their classmates when answering subject-related questions. The product has a feature allowing teachers to create their own questions, and subject-cartridges can also be purchased from the distributor. Mrs. Schwartz says… “Students seem to love the interactive nature of the system, and look forward to playing it.”

It’s great when teachers find a technology that gets students excited about their learning.