Students learning Circuitry, Robots, and Programming with Piper

The students in Ms. Menkel’s third grade class rounded out their Piper experience this morning by programming their way through a solar system. Working in pairs, students built breadboards and added buttons to make it through a variety of challenges. This is their fifth experience having started with all the components of the computer in a box in parts. Starting from the ground up, they built their computers, added speakers and a mouse and then went on to launch the computer for their programming adventures. While watching them students had to troubleshoot why they were falling off a virtual bridge (their forward button was stuck down), and what the various beeps meant in terms of meeting the challenge goals. When asked about the project, Ms. Menkel noted watching the students perceiver through challenges when sometimes their first attempt was unsuccessful has been rewarding.