C

This week we moved on from cars and had students construct windmills. We explained the basic ideas behind windmills, and had the kids brainstorm how they wanted to build their group windmill (tall/short, number of blades, sturdiness, etc). Once they built the windmills, we had them use a similar program to the week before to have the windmill change speed when a touch sensor was pressed.

All the kids managed to remember the program idea from the last class even though it was three weeks ago because of Tufts spring break and Good Friday. They also really liked getting to build again. Cars were frustrating for them to built, so they really felt accomplished when they got the windmills built in time to program. The activity went very well, the kids learned new concepts and we insured that they were remembering the lessons from previous weeks at the same time. I highly recommend this activity for a beginner NXT class.