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'Projectware' Teaching Tools

 

 

 

Build-It-Yourself has developed creative robotics 'Projectware' aimed at engaging boys and girls (ages 8-14) in playful approaches to design, invention, and scientific inquiry. 

Build-It-Yourself 'Projectware' blurs the boundaries between science and art, learning and playing, precision and imagination.

Build-It-Yourself 'Projectware' enables workshop mentors to manage groups of kids efficiently.
It includes:

  1. Teachers' Survivial Guide
  2. Power Point Lab Book Template.
  3. Playful storylines and project challenges.
  4. Online database of construction tips.
  5. Lesson plans.
  6. Power Point Presentations.
  7. Student worksheets.
  8. Student evaluation tools.
  9. Project management Web site templates.
  10. Webcast presentations to teachers and students from a team of specialists.

'Projectware' Background:
A number of companies, including LEGO and Sony, are integrating programmable micro processors in toys. The challenge of this industry trend is to inspire kids to interact with their toys in meaningful ways. For the past several years, Build-It-Yourself has worked closely with the MIT Media Lab to develop innovative projects based on programmable micro processors. 

At the Build-It-Yourself Lab in Cambridge, kids have been using a combination of recycled, everyday materials along with state-of-the-art technologies to invent whimsical machines, playful puppets, and kinetic sculptures. The Build-It-Yourself approach is based on the Beyond Black Boxes philosophy developed at the MIT Media Lab. Increasingly, children's lives are full of "black boxes" -- toys and machines that are opaque to children's investigations and understanding. By building their own machines and contraptions, kids open up the black box of technology, gaining a deeper understanding of the structures, mechanisms, and behaviors that underlie the worlds of science and technology.

The Build-It-Yourself program is a case study in a paper written by MIT Professor Mitchel Resnick titled Beyond Black Boxes and published in Journal of the Learning Sciences.