0038. SBS School. Learning and playing with Robotics

L’articolo parla del progetto pluridisciplinare a cui partecipano le classi 4^ ordinamentali e SBS . È un concorso indetto da Confindustria Bergamo con l’intento di partecipare a “Eureka! Funziona!”, concorso nazionale per la creatività e la robotica. Non si tratta solo di acquisire competenze e conoscenze in inglese su robotica e meccanica ma è anche un modo per scoprire la propria creatività e la consapevolezza che imparare è un’avventura che ci fa crescere.

Our education programme has great potential and is challenging: learning English by doing robotics. This is a good example of how a CLIL unit works and spans different objectives in the school’s curriculum and the environment. It is not only to study topics of a subject in a vehicular language, which is English in our school, but it is also a task which includes content and different cognitive and educational skills. Our school has been given the opportunity to take part in a national competition of robotics and mechanics. You can barely imagine the students’ enthusiasm to participate as well as the excitement from all the Y4 teachers.

It is about a cross-curricular project and a regional competition for technological creativity. At school the subjects of Italian, Technology, Civic Education and Art are going to be involved in all the classes of Year 4. This project is also intended as proof of reality. This comes from a proposal by “The Mechatronic Group” of Confindustria Bergamo to the Primary Schools of Bergamo and its province with the aim of joining the tenth edition of the “Eureka! It works!”, promoted nationally by Federmeccanica in agreement with MIUR. The project is developed in collaboration with the Physics Teaching Association (AIF) and the Italian Institute of Technology.

“Eureka! It works!" favours group work, where each child will cooperate by sharing the different tasks (designing the toy, making the diary board, assembling the pieces of the toy, preparing the advertisement). The fascination of mechanics plays a fundamental role which is to attract more and more talented young students towards the discovery of the technological world and the possibilities it offers. The students will be introduced at first to a class on the basics of physics and mechanics. The aim of the competition is to have the children build a mobile toy with the material they find in the kit provided. They will handle different materials and tools, such as electronic parts, levers, pulleys or screws. At home they will be encouraged to ask their relatives for advice or suggestions. It is important that each group of children will keep a diary on the work they have done as they will make an advertisement for the toy using material of their choice. The ideas will not be proposed by the teachers, but they will arise from the work of the group.

“Do not tell them how to do it. Show them how to do it and do not say a word. If you tell them they will watch your lips move. If you show them, they will want to do it themselves”, once Maria Montessori said about education.

The project intends to develop an attitude of doing, letting children express themselves freely without the interference of adults, becoming independent and learning to solve problems on their own. In this context, the teacher is a facilitator of the path. Now we are making it possible, since we truly believe in our students’ potential.

When the toys are produced, the pupils themselves will vote for the best one, which will be sent to the Confindustria commission to participate in the competition. This will develop the children’s sense of democracy and mutual respect, understanding the fact that working together is a real strength. We can achieve it when we are together, when we share our ideas, when we cooperate for a common purpose.

We will keep you updated on the progress of our skilled engineers-to-be. We are ready to start a new adventure.