I’m always looking for new things to try with my students, and I recently picked up two new ‘toys’ to test out for my classes. The first one is a project I backed on Kickstarter called Wink. Wink is a nifty little robot with programmable LED eyes and simple motors. He’s small, adorable, and can be programmed easily using Arduino. I haven’t had much free time to play with him yet, but so far he seems like a great tool to get kids interested in programming and robotics.
The second acquisition is the BreakoutEDU box. I’d been hearing a lot about the Breakout games recently, and when I discovered there was one geared for education, I had to check it out. BreakoutEDU is basically a live action puzzle game, where students have to find and decipher clues to solve a mystery in an allotted amount of time. The games look fun, and can be created for any subject area. There are a bunch already available on the website, and they look like they would be fun to create as well. I think once we finish our design challenge unit, BreakoutEDU may be the next activity we try.
