Hello and welcome! This is the thread we will use for our Introduction to the VEX EXP live course! Please feel free to @ me with any questions as we move forward.
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Hello! I’m Mark Johnston. I teach engineering and robotics at Hanks High School in El Paso, Texas.
I was so excited when EXP came out. My district was very generous and ordered me 30 sets for my 5 robotics classes.
As an early adopter, I am excited to share my experiences, encourage, and help people that are new to the EXP system. I am also excited to learn from THE amazing @Lauren_Harter !
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Hi Mark! Thanks so much for sharing! This is going to be a great class 
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Hi @Lauren_Harter and @Mark_Johnston! I’m super excited about class tonight! I’m an elementary teacher - but my district uses the VEX continuum and I want to be able to share with my students, and colleagues about what HS CS has in store. I feel like I know elementary EdTech - but I want to know more about high school robotics. I’m excited to network, and learn these Thursday night sessions.
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Hello, My name is Natali Barreto-Baca I am a Middle School teacher. I teach STEM and robotics at Truman Middle School in Albuquerque. I am very happy to learn more about VEX.
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Welcome Natali! It is wonderful to have you
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Another great EXP class tonight! Thanks @Lauren_Harter
Sorry for the super long post but I really enjoyed our discussion and I wanted to post some of the info here.
TLDR: I discuss the Engineering Notebook that I started with my class today. I talked about how I modified an activity in Activities Discussion and some Other stuff. 
Engineering Notebook:
I will start a new post with info about the engineering notebook we are doing in my class, but I will post a couple pictures of the few pages we have done so far here…
- My class started this notebook today. They are very fresh to robotics/engineering so I am doing a more directed lesson than I normally would. I am having them copy what I do into their own notebooks. I plan to have them start adding their own unique information/data/format in the very new future.
- Used a very simple composition notebook.
- Title Page
- Illustrating how to denote a blank page.
- Table of contents page with a couple extra for room to grow.
- Definitions pages (more of a “school” type thing than an engineering notebook thing) with room to grow as we run into new terms as a class.
- Up and Over game overview page with info from https://education.vex.com/stemlabs/exp/up-and-over
Activities Discussion:
We also had some discussion on activities - https://education.vex.com/stemlabs/exp/activities
I shared how I used/modified the BaseBot Driver activity to help my students choose the best driver for the my modified Freeze Tag competition.
My modification was to setup buckyballs on the field as an obstacle. The drivers would need to start in one corner and time how long it took them to get to the other corner without hitting any of the balls. They would do this three times and record the data. The next driver in the team would do the same. Then they would change the drive control to something else (i.e. tank/right-arcade/split-arcade) and do the whole process over again. This would allow them to use that data to decide who was the best driver on the team.
Here is the post about the final competition and how I modified it:
Other stuff:
@Nancy_Mejias-Melende here is a picture of the back of an EXP field tile that I was talking about:
You can see how the low-profile nuts fit so that you can drive a screw in from the top.
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Hi Mark,
This is great. Thank you for taking your time in replying. Any advice on what I should do with my students first will be very appreciated. I received the robots three weeks ago.
Thank you again,
Nancy
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This is wonderful Mark! Thanks for sharing!
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My post for Week 4!
I really enjoy the Storm the Castle VEXcode VR activity! I’m in awe of how the blocks knock down a little differently every time.
In this activity, I try to model for students how sequences work and how iteration works to solve this challenge. Some students know already in 3-5th grade know how to make a loop or use forever blocks.
I think this challenge can be differentiated for any classroom or level of understanding. I’ve taught this lesson as low as 1st grade and as high as 5th grade. With the continuum, students can challenge themselves to use their skills learned already to complete this challenge.
What grade levels do you use this VEXcode VR challenge with? Do you change the lesson for your classroom?
Dear Laura today. I try to open our zoom meeting and I was not able to join our class. Please I have a wrong zoom. Please you can send me the correct link.
Sincerely,
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Hello! There is no class today 
our fourth class is next week. Apologize for the confusion, I’ll put the dates in the syllabus.
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Dear Lauren,
Thank you! I was worry that I was having internet problems.
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Looking forward to class tomorrow night! I thought the same thing last week @Natali_Barreto - see you soon!
Dear Lauren,
I don’t know what happen with my internet . My internet connection stop working. Sorry I missed the last part of our meeting.
I am linking my padlet side[VR (Vex Robot Truman Middle School)
Hi Natali! Sorry for the brief cutoff! Thanks so much for linking the padlet this is amazing to see!
Week 5 Post!
I missed seeing you all @Mark_Johnston @Natali_Barreto and @Lauren_Harter tonight. It was The Spelling Bee at school and it ran later than I thought. But I want to put my ideas down to share. Please let me know how the last class went 
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What are your thoughts on the videos about teaching creativity and student engagement?
I feel so empowered after taking this EXP course to get my elementary students prepared for high school coding. I really have enjoyed listening to how @Natali_Barreto and @Mark_Johnston implement VEX robotics in their classroom. -
How do you currently give effective feedback to your students?
Right now, I feel that formative assessment really is the way I use assessment in my classroom. I really enjoy the certificates as another means of feedback for students to feel empowered. -
What are some goals or next steps to implement VEX EXP in your classroom?
My next step is collaborating with my high school colleagues. I feel like I understand what they want to accomplish and hopefully can explain to them how I use elementary robotics. I think talking with the group really gave me confidence to collaborate to make a K-12 continuum. -
What did you find helpful about this course? What else would you like to learn?
I really enjoyed the discussions, lessons each week and then learning about how each educator uses VEX in their classroom. I really got great ideas that I implemented like the “Pit” and game strategies for my VEX GO students.
Thank you!!
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