Robotics

[amyx4]

I have an 8th grader that has been bitten by the Lego Robotics bug. He's been on a FLL middle school team. However, there aren't any high school teams in our area. I know one suggestion would be to start a high school team. I also suspect that he needs to have a good math and science education. What else should he focus on during high school? Does anyone know of any distance learning classes that focus on Robotics? Has anyone else had a student head in this direction? Thanks for the suggestions.

[mamato4]

My son is in his second year on a First Tech Challenge (FTC) team. Most of his teammates are from a math and science academy so here are some areas ds has to learn on his own.

 

Electronics - in the high school level teams, there is a lot more leeway as to the materials allowed. Teams can build their own circuit boards, protoboards, switches, etc. One has to know electronics concepts and how to solder. Ds will be using the book "Make: Electronics" over the summer to learn more.

 

CAD - FIRST uses PTC CAD for their teams. This is one very useful skill since three kids on his team who are good at CAD were able to get summer intern jobs at an engineering firm and get paid way above minimum wage and be mentored by real engineers. I think another popular CAD program is Autodesk. We use PTC since it's free to FTC teams.

 

These are the two things that come to mind right now. HTH!