Introduction to Robotics with Axle

We work directly with your teachers on two questions. How many days can you actually give the unit? And what is the program's goal: a tool to raise math and science scores, or an engaging, hands-on introduction to robotics? From those conversations we recommend which of the 45 lessons matter most. The Axle map has a lot of math and science built in, so a school can keep most of those lessons to strengthen math and science learning, or skip some and move into more complex coding. The same help applies to Pilot: if you do not have 25 full days, we build a customized scope and sequence with your school.

Pilot and Axle each come with a General curriculum as well as the grade-level versions. It removes any required prior knowledge and looks at robotics and coding as a whole. The grade versions assume grade-level skills: the fifth grade Pilot curriculum, for example, assumes students have a good grasp of third, fourth and fifth grade math and science. Removing that requirement opens the General curriculum to a wider audience. It suits settings such as an after-school club where sixth and eighth graders sit in the same room. Treads has no General version.

Pilot and Axle are our base robots, with a 25-day unit and a 45-day unit. FlexForge is a recent addition: pieces students build onto those base robots to work through the engineering design process. A kit has lots of gray build pieces, plus extra motors and gears, and it comes with a 15-day curriculum extension built around five engineering challenges. In one, students design a claw that grabs an object and carries it across the classroom. In another, they design a snowplow for the front of the robot. Students prototype, test and iterate. The pieces work well on both Pilot and Axle, and the FlexForge curriculum slide lists 5 units of 3 lessons at 45 to 60 minutes each.

Yes. Once the robots are built, an engineering or science class can use them in the morning for the base curriculum, and in the afternoon the most interested students can use the FlexForge pieces to go deeper into the engineering design process. The General curriculum also suits clubs where students from different grades work together, because it removes any required prior knowledge. Clubs combine well with staggered units: a grade finishes its classroom unit, then joins the club later in the year.

Robots are priced per unit: the Treads Robot is $200 per robot, the Pilot Robot Kit is $399 per robot, and the Axle Robot Kit is $650 per robot. FlexForge add-on kits are $149 for Basic and $349 for Enhanced. A first-year Classroom Package includes a classroom set of robots, curriculum licensing for the lesson plans, PowerPoints and worksheets, access to the Learning Portal with all of its asynchronous videos, and the full one-on-one training package. The total depends on how many students and teachers are involved, so we quote each school individually.