Picaxe- DVC's award-winning robotics program
The Picaxe program gives all students, at all levels, exposure to some
great eye catching Robotic activities which capture their
imaginations and motivate them to learn new technologies. Students
work in teams and mentor each other with their ideas and skills.Year
7 students are encouraged to aim high and build line tracking robots
and 7 segment displays. Students are encouraged to present their experiences
to visitors and at conferences.
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Many students work on their designs and program them
at home, proudly showing their families and friends their achievements
and their new technology skills. One teacher remembers a year 7 student at a parent interview explaining to his father that when he built his model, he had presented his work by drawing it using
a CAD program with it spinning in colour in space in 3D. In the next
sentence the student recalled that he built from scratch a microcontroller
board, a download cable and then programmed the chip to play tunes
and run LED's on his own extension board. "It's easy dad, I'll
show you, it is really cool stuff". |
Diamond Valley College's robotics teacher Pat McMahon was again
an award winner at the recent Microsoft Innovative Teachers Conference
in Hanoi, Vietnam. Pat's topic as a state winner was Robotics and
Re-Programmable Micro chips. Over 150 teachers from 22 countries
gathered in Hanoi, for the 4th Annual Partners in Learning, Asia
Pacific Regional Innovative Teachers’ Conference.
“This was an incredible
experience. To meet and work with award winning teachers from
many countries was a great opportunity and very rewarding. By
sharing what we are offering at the college and networking,
I have come away from this conference proud of what we already
have achieved at Diamond Valley College. I have fresh ideas
for future projects working in collaboration with other countries.” Pat
McMahon.
Pat was the 2007 Australian State and Territory winner of the
Microsoft Innovative Teacher Award, and in 2008 was the Northern
Region winner of the same award, and the Northern Region winner
as well as a state finalist in the 2008 MECU Outstanding Secondary
Teacher Awards held at the Crown Palladium on Friday 16 May.
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