Does anyone have pics of free builds their students have done with the kit?
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@LORI_COLANGELO my kiddos love to have a free build class once a month. I love all the VEX GO builds and I want to surprise the kids so I give them blueprint paper and allow them to work on their own creations all month long. At the end of the month - I love seeing what the kids can come up with.
My idea is I want to create a design engineering culture in my classroom. So I try to guide the 3-5 graders to think less of a free for all but instead build with intention.
I’m attaching some pictures to show you how creative kids can be with intention. I’m thinking of putting together a creation journal for kids to work on each month. I have found that the kids also want to document each of their creations with pictures on their iPad. I love how much they want to share with their friends and parents.
I’m interested to hear how other people share their student’s creations. Thanks!
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@Anna_Blake I cannot tell you how much I LOVE the idea of letting your kids design and percolate over their design throughout the month before they build. I think it’s a great way to have your students live in that iterative place for a while - giving them a chance to apply what they’ve picked up during other STEM Labs and Activities and builds, and making that their own. Then, free build day isn’t so much pressure to quickly design and build something - but it’s a day that is looked forward to with anticipation of making their ideas come to life. This is so fantastic!!
I think the journal idea is a great one - and I think it could also be really useful to encourage kids to write about how and why they changed their design over the course of the month. Then, if they share their journals with others, there’s some context given and it’s great practice to articulate your thinking to reinforce the learning.
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I love free builds!
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@Anna_Blake
Thinking about those creation journals, you could use something like the Engineering Design Notebooks used by the REC for competitions!
All of the students in those competitions are guided through recording their ideas, the trials they go through, the reasoning behind their designs, and the iterations. Along with points in the actual judging rubric at competitions having their notebooks dated and signed by another team member.
One of my favorite parts of that judging rubric is the part about being repeatable. Students individually know how to build their creation, but being able to communicate those instructions for someone else could be so difficult. Hopefully this can help you with ideas for elements to include in your creation notebooks 
