Texas Instruments Calculator Controlled Robot

Now shipping

"New Tough ABS Plastic Kit!"

This is what some of our customers had to say about our kit!

I recently ordered the TI Calculator Robot kit for use in my classroom. The Kids Love it!

I made the graphing calculator robot and earned an "A" for my robotics class in my Masters.

Great product, my students have already learned some basic programming. I plan to order more as soon as my students demo the product for our administrators.

Thanks! My two son's (grades 4 & 5) were absolutely enthralled with their ability to control a real robot ... albeit the dad had to do most of the programming .

I was also able to experiment a little with junior high kids as I had a week long math camp with them this week. The kids absolutely loved it! It was their favorite activity of the week.

I started by just giving them the sheet with the program syntax on it and just told them to get them moving. Then I gave them a robot "excersize" checklist of different things they were supposed to get the robot to do. When they accomplished it, I would check them off. Even though groups were sharing the same robot, each person would work on the programs and then they would take turns trying it out with the robot. All students were engaged as a result.

By far the most fun activity was our "tournament". I placed a golf ball in the middle of the floor and two meter sticks 1 meter away. On the outside of each meter stick there was a 10 cm tape mark and each robot had to start facing in. Each team programmed the robot to get to the ball as efficiently as possible. (they were not allowed to try it on the actual playing field) On the signal, each robot started their program and the first robot to reach the golf ball was the winner. We did a double elimination tournament. It was a riot, and the kids got into it so much we had quite a shouting match over a disputed outcome.

A more mathematical activity that I tried with my teachers was that we did an experiment to show the relationship between the millisecond number for a turn and the number of degrees that the robot turned. It was a very nice linear relationship. This would be a good activity for an algebra class.

At the end of this e-mail is what I tried. Thanks for an interesting product & please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Yup..That was the problem. I finally got the robot to work, and it great! You guys have really created a great little robot! Thanks a lot for helping.

I'm VERY impressed that you have got all the control now just done by Sends and Gets - at first I thought you must have forgotten to pack the disk with the control routines. All best wishes - and many congratulations