This time, we held a workshop themed "Let's Play and Learn! Disaster Prevention Programming with Rolling Ball Robot!". With the participation of parent-child pairs (5th and 6th grade elementary school students and their parents), they could experience the problem-solving process through programming-thinking: when a disaster strikes, what actions should be taken, and in what order, for everyone to survive?
Specifically, a 2m x 2m playmat depicting urban environments, such as roads, buildings, coastal areas, and high ground, was used to set up a hypothetical tsunami evacuation field. Each parent-child pair was asked to programming and move the "Sphero BOLT" Rolling Ball Robot in this field.
The programming experience allowed participants to explore how to interact with the various physical pieces set up on the field to solve problems, e.g., avoid the piece representing "obstacle" on the route; join the piece representing "vulnerable person in need of assistance" to evacuate together, etc.
In recent years, programming education has become mandatory in elementary and junior high schools in Japan, and there is a lot of attention to acquiring programming thinking and developing a curriculum that spans multiple fields.
With this Summer School Project as a starting point, I would like to continue to develop workshops on the theme of "Gensai Programming" (Disaster Risk Reduction Programming), and contribute to the programming education / STEM education initiatives.
I want to express gratitude to researchers of the Research Department and colleagues of the Management Department at DRI for their cooperation in implementing this project and everyone who participated in the event.
