p2pnet special: We home-school our daughter, Emma, 9, and one our most valuable resources is the Net. When we get stuck, we’re just as likely to go online as open a book, and Emma now uses her computer routinely.

We have a lot of reasons for teaching her ourselves, not the least of which is the fact it’s becoming increasingly dangerous for kids’ mental health to go to school these days. And that’s as much because entertainment and software cartel ‘educational’ programs are increasingly showing up in classrooms around the world, as anything else.

But, thank God, that’s not something we, or other home-schooling parents, have to worry about.

We live on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, and belong to the Cowichan Valley Home Learners Group, a loose-knit organization of mums, dads and kids who meet fairly regularly so the children can play with, and learn from, each other, and to organize events.

Last year one member, Heather Drew, was at a very cool annual contest staged by Camosun, an innovative community college serving Victoria, southern Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, and beyond.

It was for sumo wrestlers – robot sumo wrestlers – and Heather thought that somehow getting our kids into the project might be interesting.

Alan Duncan, chair of Camosun’s electronics and computer engineering school of trades and technology, agreed it was an interesting idea and last Monday, just about everyone turned up for a special mini-sumo robot construction day at Camosun, with hands on help from the instructors.

The robots (made from kits developed at Camosun, powered by small motors and able to ’see’ with electronic sensors sensors) try to shove each other off special circular mats.

The sumos are programmed with downloadable software developed in C by instructor Mel Dundas, and the units can be easiy re-programmed to perform new tasks.

The kids worked from detailed instructions posted on purpose-designed web pages. Above, Emma and her friends Sam (centre) and Amanda Anderson put their creations together.

“We’ve had school groups before,” Duncan told me. “But this was a first time with home-schoolers and we were very impressed.” And, “Some of the kids were doing a better job at soldering than our regular students,” said Dundas.

The Cowichan Valley Home School Group sumo robots will be ‘wrestling’ at the next contest in May.

Meanwhile, it’d be interesting to see how many other home-school parents there are out there who use the Net in one way or another.

If you’re one such, email me, with pix, preferably, and we’ll run another p2pnet Home School special.

Cheers! And all the best …
Jon

Also See:
‘educational’ programs – They’re brainwashing YOUR child, July 4, 2005

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