Good Robot Projects For K-5?

bugs2squash writes "Some of the parents of kids at my son's elementary school would like to set up a robotics club for the children. I see that Lego has a new line of robotics bricks called wedo (PDF) and that seems to be the path of least resistance to doing something. But I wanted to ask: What experience do all y'all have of running a robotics club for this age group (5 thru 10 years old) and what factors made it a success (or failure)? Did you use a commercial kit of parts or brew something from scratch? What kind of projects work well with kids this age? I was thinking maybe making robot flowers (yes, I know they'd all rather build robotic sharks with lasers)." (Here's another page about Wedo.)

Comments

Range of students.

[Albio]

5 year olds and 10 year olds can be quite different. It would not be a good idea to treat all of these kids as the same.

Re:Too young

[R2.0]

I don't think you quite understand the mind of some young boys. R3.0 has been trying to build Transformers and other devices out of sticks and soda cans, and he's been doing that since he was 4 or 5.

In some kids, the desire to control is far less insistent than the drive to create. (And dismantle/destroy, but that's a topic for another post.