Future Iterations
Dec 4th, 2013 by bernsj2
The Future: A Fracimal Bot
In the future, we plan to improve on the design of the Fraction Bot. As one of the more challenging topics of 6th grade is decimals, we plan on advancing the Fraction bot to toggle between fractions and decimals and to challenge students to perform conversions between both forms of numbers. We will use LEDs to display the fractions and decimals as representations of one whole row. This will help the students achieve a full conceptual understanding of what decimals and fractions actually are.
Shown above are two conceptual screen captures of the future “Fracimal Bot.” The Fracimal Bot will contain 3 rows of 20 LEDs. Two of these rows will be the inputs to an arithmetic operation. When the question flashes upon the screen, each row will light up to represent the fraction or percentage of the 20 lights represented by the given input. The student will then adjust their dial to light up the appropriate number of answer LEDs. Similar to the Fraction Bot, pressing the Go button will check the set answer and the board will light up if it is correct.
We also received advice from the students’ math teacher that if the students had a way to sign in with unique IDs that would track their progress and statistics, it would mimic many of the current learning tools they use. That would also help us quantitatively prove that this device is successful as a learning tool.