OC 6th Grade Class Wins Set Of "Ozobots"

It’s not every day that you receive a legitimate e-mail stating that you are the winner of a set of sophisticated robots. For Orchard-Clearwater Sixth Grade teacher Tami Kuhfal, that is precisely what happened.

Following Kuhfal’s Sixth Grade class participating in the “Hour of Code” in December, a nationwide program which is a one-hour introduction to computer science that demystifies coding and provides basic knowledge on the subject, Kuhfal received an email stating that she was the winner of a set of toy robots called “Ozobots”.
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“Two weeks ago, I received an email from the Ozobot company congratulating me and saying that I had won them. It was the weirdest thing…I received a code, went through the rest of the process and figured the shipping costs, and the next week they arrived,” Kuhfal said.

Ozobots provide students with a hands on approach to programming through unique functions the Ozobot provides. The Ozobot will follow any line that is drawn and reacts to unique color code sequences that are placed along the line. Some of the functions the students had the Ozobot perform with the color codes were ‘Pause’, ‘Zigzag’, ‘Spin’, ‘Tornado’, ‘U Turn’, and ‘Slow’.

The Ozobots aren’t only beneficial for learning programming, however. Kuhfal uses a unique approach of teaching mathematics and graphing through the Ozobots, giving a fun and hands on approach to learning as well as teaching the lessons.

Kuhfal also detailed plans on the future implementation of the Ozobots.

“There’s actually a drop and drag program on the iPad that will take it to the next level, so we plan on starting that soon. Hopefully we can get people inspired with our Ozobots,” Kuhfal said.