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Retrospective for outreach event - June 14th 2018

What went well

  • About 80% of the whole class enjoyed it.
    • On the whole, we achieved our objective to enthuse them about robots and programming.
  • Setup and tear down went well!
  • The tour was good.
  • We presented ourselves professionally.
  • The kids got an experience of debugging, troubleshooting.
  • Teaching methods:
    • Andy: Learn by doing, read guide->test code in short blocks
    • Nick: Go through intro->Get compilation->Get movement->ITERATION!
    • Dan: Sit by the student whilst they read the guide and prompt them as they do something.
  • The team that didn't go on the tour did the best!
  • We didn't kill any of the robots.
    • The arena was designed such that they couldn't fall off.
  • The talk at the start was good.

What could be done better

  • 20% unenjoyment
    • They had a broken robot.
  • The tutorial was too advanced for the age range
    • Not everyone could program :(
    • People tried to execute python in C++.
    • People tried to execute the tutorial code.
  • We assumed people knew programming, data types.
  • The day was too short, 2 hours is not enough to teach them all the programming.
  • The tour was too long.
  • The volunteers weren't really familiar with the mbeds/C++.
  • There was a bug in the start code. Missing }.
  • The LED library isn't very useful.
  • Demo code -> Move function
    • Not everyone knew about move functions.
    • It also had an int return which could cause confusion?
  • It was on the 8th floor of the maths building
    • The school booked it late, heck.
  • Not all groups were the same size.
    • 2 is too small. 3 seems to be ideal.
  • The robot at the start didn't really work.
    • Low battery - we probably didn't have fully charged batteries in the box.
  • If we did run the competition, we didn't have the prize :(.

Measures to implement

  • Write a tutorial that has real code.
  • Host a session for the volunteers to get familiar with the event - work through the tutorial sheet and make sure it works.
  • Make the guide more clear that it is a reference not a guide.
    • We can also write a step by step guide.
  • Investigate micropython.
    • Dan investigated: our MBEDs don't have enough RAM :(
  • Adopt the university approach: assume nothing, teach from the ground up.
  • RUST!!!!!!!!!!
    • Dan to investigate.
  • Write a wrapper library for the MBED
    • Dan to investigate.
  • Put all the code in a while loop in the main function.
  • Use a longer day.
  • Remove all of the kids
    • Group of size 0 solves all the issues.