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The California Math & Science CHALLENGE!

A Science and Information Technology Program modeled on the US Olympic Development Program.

Three steps to developing world-class math and science “athletes”:
  • Step 1: Get young children playing the “Game” of Math & Science; 
  • Step 2: Identify those with a true love for that game; 
  • Step 3: Get them World-class Coaching as they prepare for Tournaments, Active Learning Design™ Contests, and Home Learning (Online Mastery) Challenges.

How Do We Create World-Class Math & Science Athletes?

Let’s Get Our Kids in the Game!

To fix American students’  decades long slide in Math & Science knowledge, we need to start American children playing the game of Math & Science at a young age! When a country wants to compete in the Olympics does it go out and recruit high school freshman to start developing soccer stars or volleyball stars? Of course not! Five or six years old is the right age to introduce young athletes to your game. We have been introducing Kindergarten to 8th Grade students to programming, problem-solving, and applied mathematics for 17 years now with great results.

To Get Here …                  →                 … Start Here

Why shouldn’t we do the same for Math & Science?

Mental Athletes: 5 to 11 Years of Age!

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“Arts & Sciences Academy” Students Shine in Jr Botball Robotics Tournament

In this ⇒ Video Clip two students on the Arts & Sciences Academy Robotics Team solve the “Serpentine Challenge” in Saturday’s Junior Botball Robotics Tournament in San Diego.

The tournament was organized by Jeff Major:

The Arts & Sciences Academy Robotics Team of Dharma and Martina were the ONLY team to solve all 5 challenges in the tournament! (their code is below the “read more” tag) Arts & Sciences Academy student Max, arriving near the end of the morning also finished 4 out of 5 challenges before running out of time!

Since the weekend’s tournament the MISD robotics team students have moved on to the second level of Jr Botball: Learning about Sensors, Light Energy & the Electromagnetic Spectrum, Digital vs Analog inputs, and more…!

Jr Botball is a program designed to get American kids playing the “game” of Math & Science at an early age. 3rd graders and up learn to program in Objective C to “teach” their robots to solve a series of challenges that require them to understand coding, electronics, sensors, simple machines, and more:

CA Math & Science Challenge:
Programming • Problem-Solving • Applied Mathematics • sTEm Design

To see the CODE the girls wrote to solve the serpentine challenge and more photos from the Tournament…

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Its Not (Just) About The Robots! • But Here’s How to Choose One…

“Robots can serve as the basis of a powerful problem-solving curriculum that will help young children begin to develop the habit of creative, independent problem solving while introducing them to the key technologies of the Information Age.”  But …

… It’s Not About the Robots!

21st Century Mind Tools” • The Robots Change, Year-by-Year

There are many different programmable robots on wheels, which one should you choose?

The Pedagogical Advantages of Programmable Robots

“Whatever I cannot recreate for myself I do not understand.” — Richard Feynmann, Nobel Laureate in Physics

  • Early Learning robots should encourage children to work with their hands and to move around their environment.

“The hand is the instrument of the intellect.”  — Dr. Maria Montessori

As With All Well-designed Manipulatives:

  • Early Learning robots provide a medium through which to explore the world.
  • Early Learning robots allow for meaningful play (closely related to creativity): play that reveals to children the secrets of their environment.
  • Early Learning robots provide a material path to abstraction: i.e., a material, or concrete, way for children to model abstract concepts like length, angle, or negative vs. positive numbers.

Unlike Inert, Passive, Show-&-Tell Manipulatives:
(And many electronic games, toys, and computer “educational” software)

  • Early Learning robots can be multi-use: an exploration, modeling, & problem solving tool.
  • Early Learning robots are not limited to rigid or prescribed (pre-programmed) uses or behaviors: children can explore their environment creatively, testing and refining their concepts of it as they go. Continue reading →