On today's episode of the TeacherCast Podcast, we welcome Kat Kennewell and Phil Grigonis on the program to showcase the amazing Edison Robot from Microbric.
About Edison Robots
In 2014, with only a tiny team based in South Australia, Microbric launched the Edison robot with a bang. The wildly successful Kickstarter campaign hit 524% funding and the popularity of Edison has only grown from there. The highly versatile and easy-to-use robot is now distributed globally and can be found in schools in more than 50 countries around the world.
Microbric’s vision for the Edison robot is to create an affordable, comprehensive STEM teaching resource for coding and robotics education for students in years 3 – 9. To support this vision, users of Edison have access to free educational resources and programming apps.
The Edison robot can be programmed multiple ways: using pre-set barcodes, EdWare, EdPy and now, EdBlocks.
EdBlocks, the newest programming language for Edison robots, is a fully icon-based language that is super easy to use. A drag-and-drop block-based system, EdBlocks is intuitive and fun, even for younger users. Perfect for introducing anyone to programming, EdBlocks is ideal for students aged 8 to 12 years old.
Students can then take their programming further with EdWare, a hybrid graphical language, and EdPy, a highly versatile text-based programming language based on Python.
Best of all? Access to all programming languages and associated teaching resources is absolutely free.
Learn more at www.meetedison.com
Links of Interest
About our Guests
Kat Kennewell
Product and Marketing Manager for Microbric, a South Australia-based educational robotics company, Kat has experience working in education, eLearning, and technology. An avid writer, Kat believes the right words can connect people with the ideas they need to make a better world for today and tomorrow.
Phil Grigonis
Phil Grigonis is a Technology Education teacher at Upper Perkiomen Middle School in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems and a Masters in Technology Education. Phil has been teaching for the past three years, and has worked for IBM and Accenture Consulting in previous careers. In addition to teaching, he is the advisor at his school for the Technology Student Association (TSA) and a member of the Technology Education and Engineering Association of Pennsylvania (TEEAP).
Check out Phil's Edison Robot Website
More about Edison Robots
- Unparalleled value-for-money and is supported by free downloadable lesson plans and activities.
- Thanks to built-in sensors, lights and sounds plus autonomous behaviour capabilities, true robotics education is possible with Edison.
- Responds to light and sounds
- Follows lines and avoids obstacles
- Communicate with other Edison robots
- Can be used as a platform to build all types of projects
- Edison can grow with students as their coding knowledge expands.
- EdBlocks is a fully graphical robot programming language that is super easy to use. A drag-and-drop block-based system, EdBlocks is intuitive and fun, even for younger users – perfect for students in grades 3 to 6
- EdWare combines the ease of drag-and-drop graphical icons with increased functionality from text-based entry, a great next-step in coding education.
- EdPy is a highly versatile text-based programming language based on Python. EdPy makes text-based programming fun by letting students see their code come to life in their Edison robot. With EdPy, students are learning the core of a real programming language and are able to take their exploration of robotics and coding to a more advanced level.
EdBlocks:
- Free to use at edblocksapp.com
- Quick to get started with – just drag and drop blocks, connect Edison to your device through the headphone jack with the included EdComm cable, and program Edison.
- Perfect for introducing coding to anyone with lesson plans targeted to students in grades 3 to 6.
- Set of 23 lesson plans designed to allow students to work through activities independently, gradually learning about both the Edison robot and EdBlocks available free to download.
- Free to download teacher’s guide to EdBlocks and the EdBlocks lesson plans
- Over 150 blocks enabling programs to be created controlling Edison’s drive, lights, sounds, messaging as well as programming features such as loops and ‘wait until’ blocks.
- Program straight from the online app in a browser – no additional software required
