Hi-
We recently purchased the EXP Classroom kit and are so excited! Prior to accepting this job, I taught one year of PLTW Principles of Engineering using the VEX V5 platform… that’s it for my robotics experience. I am teaching a middle school (grades 7-8) robotics course using the EXP system (this course had previously been taught with VEX V5). Before you jump in to the STEM Labs, do you do a basic intro to the kit, safety, etc? Does anyone have any resources they’d be willing to share? Also, anyone developed labels for the EXP kits/jewel cases they’d be willing to share? Any tips, tricks, advice? I’m a veteran math/engineering teacher… just new to the world of robotics and very excited to be here!
Hi @Cassie_Banka and welcome! The EXP Certification Course is a great place to learn all about teaching with EXP! In addition to the curriculum found here: EXP | VEX Education, you can check out the VEX EXP Activities | VEX Education such as “Can You Name That Part?”, “Scavenger Hunt”, and “Advanced Scavenger Hunt”. These are just three Activities you can do with students, or yourself that are more introductory and will get you familiarized with your Kits!
There are also a lot of great resources found in the VEX Library. Remember, EXP is the classroom version of V5, so all electronics are backwards and forwards compatible if you have them laying around from the previous course. For instance, here is a great article that can be applied to EXP Safety! Additionally, here is an article using EXP to teach V5 STEM Labs.
As for naming conventions, I found it useful to name and number each pair of kit you have. So on the jewel case that contains the gears and wheels, I would write Kit 1, Case 1 of 2. The kit that contains the screws, I would write Kit 1, Case 2 of 2. Then, whatever build comes out of each kit I would put a label on it saying “Kit 1” which would let me know it uses parts from Kit 1. This is helpful when there are a bunch of kits and you are unsure which robot belongs to which kit.
Let us know what you think about all this information, and if there is anything else we can do to help you get started!
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Thank you, @Matthew_Goodwin. I found those activities you mentioned last night and made copies for myself 
I appreciate you linking the safety article, I had not stumbled upon that yet. There is a wealth of information on the site. I look forward to digging in deeper and connecting via the community boards.
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Thanks @Cassie_Banka We can’t wait to see what you come up with!
I like doing a simple all-mechanical challenge that is all mechanical before getting into the electronics. For example, build a car that can run down a ramp and go as far as possible before coming to a stop. This gets students to understand the different pieces like screws, nuts, bearings, and plates and how they go together before doing a step-by step build. The designs are rarely very good at the start, but that’s ok! It gets students understanding from day one what a challenge based course is all about.
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@Evan_Weinberg I totally agree with you! Kids who have no experience may look at their kit before them and say “that looks like too much, I don’t even know where to get started.” It is such a great idea to remove the more advanced contents (electronics) and have them focus on the introductory things for the purpose of building a strong foundation for them to develop upon.
The Activities that I shared in my first post in this thread are some of these introductory Activities that get the participant to actually examine and explore the kit. Something that is really helpful in this process is incentivizing the goal, too. It would be really cool (I guess coming from an engineer my version of cool is different from others) to have a sort-of Pinewood Derby! Who is able to build the fastest car out of their VEX EXP kits?
I’d be more than happy to help with anything, for instance build a Pinewood derby car. Check out some of the other threads I’ve been involved in and built things for other PD+ users!
I also do some building before we jump into coding (without sensors) and then coding (with sensors). It is not as overwhelming then. I also take the sensors off at the end and have the students create their own Battlebots before dismantling the robots for the next class. They love that part.
