Engaging with Functions through Music with mBot and Swift Playgrounds

Use the Programmable robot to re-create project

If you have been following our Education posts you will be familiar with the work of Daniel Budd.  Daniel is the Director of Learning Technologies at Corpus Christi College in Australia and has been spearheading the Swift Education community.

In a recent, functions are a seemingly abstract topic which isn’t covered in mathematics curriculum until the end of high school.  However, students simplified the process by analyzing the structure of a song and came to the conclusion that by grouping sequential statements into a function they can produce ideal outputs over and over again.

In this video we see the result of the students trying to re-create “The Imperial March” from Star Wars using the speakers on their programmable robot: mBot and Swift.  Daniel has published the code to create this yourself on his blog.

Coding with mBot Swift Playground Book

This has been made possible through a new Swift Playground Book template which integrates the new Playground: Bluetooth framework which improves connectivity of the mBot and makes it easier for teachers to utilise over 10 devices in a single classroom.

Daniel has created a comprehensive curriculum which allow students to explore the Swift language with mBot.  A recent update to this curriculum saw changes to core commands – allowing access to motors individually and updates to the course structure with additional cutscenes to help student with understanding how the sensors on the mBot work.

To access this Swift Playground Book and start your students off on their programmable robot adventures subscribe with your iPad at Daniel Budd’s Github.

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