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Wybers Wood Junior Computer Club has been using Roamers to understand how to program computers. The group consisted of a group of Year 6 children who worked during their lunchtime for a number of weeks on various control projects. The work began with the children learning how to write simple programs with a software program called Crystal Logo. The children learned how to make the screen turtle draw a simple square and then to gradually move from this to using repeat instructions to draw a crystal flower.
At this point the Crystal Logo program was not sufficient as the children wanted to write more complicated programs to draw a crystal garden and so they began to use a program called Terrapin Logo. This enabled the children to write nested procedures. The Logo work gave the children an excellent grasp of writing instructions for the on screen turtle to follow. They learnt by a process of trial and error. If something went wrong, they were encouraged to identify their ‘bug’ and to put it right. This caused some insecurity at first but resulted in them being able to solve their problems independently or through discussion with their peers. They took great pride in this – and rightly so! The Logo work was followed by the children working with Roamers. This might seem like a backward step, as children learn to program Roamers in Year 2 as part of the ICT scheme of work. However, by fitting a control box to the bottom of the Roamer it is possible to connect up lights, buzzers, motors and sensors and to write complicated programs to operate these. The children began by programming basic instructions into the Roamer to get him to move around. They were able to make connections between the type of instructions used with an on-screen turtle and those for the Roamer. They also were able to appreciate the differences, particularly in step size. Having used forward 100 for the Logo turtle, it was easy to see that this was not appropriate for the Roamer as he crashed into the wall! The children were given the problem of making Roamer into a fairground ride complete with lights, movement and music. To do this they had to write fairly complicated nested procedures and automatically had to resort to recording their programs to keep track of their instructions and to help identify their ‘bugs’ (see below).
Having sorted out a method of recording the children then worked in groups to turn their Roamer into a fairground ride.
The children really enjoyed their work with the Roamers and became skilled at writing programs and sorting their problems out. When it came time for them to choose a most memorable moment for their final Year 6 assembly the children chose to do a presentation based on their Roamer work.
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