In 6th Period, We Move Some Robots.

OK, my 6th Period is a great class. First off, it is little, with only 11 kids in it. Great number for a class. Second off, the kids are, by and large, smart and relatively motivated. They work hard when I ask them to, they try to figure stuff out by themselves, they don't whine.

We did some tough problems today and had about 20 minutes of class time left, so I pulled out a new game that I got recently, called "Ricochet Robots."

In this game, a board full of wall and obstructions are set up across a grid. There are a total of 4 different colored robots on the board. The object of the game is to move one of the colored robots around the board, following certain simple rules, to a predetermined spot on the grid. Basically, robots can move straight until they hit something, then they have to stop. You move the robots around the board to create a path to the goal square.

It is a pretty cerebral game, recommended to me by a number of gamers as a great game for kids learning computer stuff.

I stink at the game. I have a great deal of difficulty visualizing the movement of four different robots across a large grid 10-12 moves ahead. I thought that the kids might get easily frustrated and give up.

I was wrong.

I dragged the game out, set up the board, told them the rules and they got right to it. Five or six of them were seriously analyzing the board, considering moves, challenging each other that they could get to the goal square in fewer moves and so forth. They really came up with some great stuff and I was immensely pleased. I am also happy to see that the young women in the class dig right in and analyze and experiment just like the young men. A couple of them are downright brilliant in their ability to visualize solutions to the game.

Cool, cool, cool.

(If you might be interested in the game, you can see an online version of the game at: http://www.ricochetrobot.com)