At the suggestion of a doctoral student I met at a robotics conference, I did a series of interviews with some of my elementary robotics students.\u00a0 I started a program this year that consists of robotics projects at every grade level from preschool to grade 6.\u00a0 Additionally, there are open ended engineering challenges, based on robotics, at grades K, 2, 4, and 6.\u00a0 These consist of challenges like building your own burglar alarm or carnival ride instead of the standard projects where they build a design from the book.<\/p>\n
The kids repeatedly said that the projects were fun (this was mentioned some 24 times with the next most common being that they liked that it was hands-on, which was mentioned 13 times.\u00a0 When I asked them why it was fun, they said because it was hands on or that that it was satisfying at the end or that it was different. I say the same things in my and grant applications:\u00a0 hands on is better, fun, a good way to learn, etc.<\/p>\n
But I was left feeling that I was not getting at the core idea of why it was fun for them.<\/p>\n