Curriculum Building – Behold The Future!

MJ j -

Hello all, and welcome to my third blog post!

This past week, I have been meticulously working on establishing a rough outline of what topics my curriculum will go over. As a quick recap, I am making a robotics curriculum which will be added to BASIS Mesa’s list of extracurricular subjects starting next year. This class will be open for students grades 8-12 to take, and I plan to make it both introductory while at the same time engaging for those that might want a challenge.

As you can see in the snapshot below, I have started outlining various topics that could be included as part of the curriculum, as well as the method the information would be received by the students through use of chatbots, as well as a course I found online that was provided by Northwestern University. This spreadsheet is still in rudimentary form, and I plan to further expand on it this week. An interesting fact I found while entering prompts into chatbots, namely ChatGPT and Gemini, is that the answer the bot would give you could be different even when asking the same exact question twice (within the same bot) This shows how bots can process information differently depending on the time it is asked, and the time it takes to respond.

Additionally, I have started creating the presentation that will go into detail about the course itself, which I will present to Sara Kubiak, the Director of Academic Programs for grades 6-12. I plan to keep adding information as I go along my journey.

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for (even though nobody tried to guess on the last set of trivia questions)

Here were the answers to the trivia questions from last week:

Q: Who is known as the Father of Robotics?

A: Joseph Engelberger

Source: https://www.automate.org/robotics/engelberger/joseph-engelberger-about#:~:text=Father%20of%20Robotics-,Joseph%20F.,engineer%20and%20inventor%20George%20C.

Q: What is the name of the famous robotic dog created by Boston Dynamics?

A: Spot

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Dynamics

Q: What was the name of NASA’s Mars Rover that operated for nearly 15 years instead of its planned 90-day mission?

A: Opportunity

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/science/mars-opportunity-rover-dead.html

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Comments:

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    sidd_s
    MJ, I love how you end your post with a creative line about robots and trivia- it really adds character to your post. I do have one question: What specific topics do you plan to cover in your robotics curriculum?
    March 4, 2025 at 11:05 am - Reply
    mj_j
    Hey Sidd! As mentioned in the post, I am currently working on deciding what topics I plan to cover in my curriculum. I'll let you know of any updates as I continue my project!
    March 4, 2025 at 11:16 am - Reply
    vinesh_k
    Hey MJ! Out of curiosity, as part of the curriculum, who do you think would teach the course? Also, I think incorporating potential hands-on activities could be a good way to create a more interactive and engaging curriculum! Good luck, and looking forward to seeing updates next week!
    March 4, 2025 at 4:23 pm - Reply
    mj_j
    Hello Vinesh. Most likely, Mr. Galluppi, one of the faculty teachers at BASIS Mesa will be teaching this course starting next year. Appreciate your support through my project!
    March 4, 2025 at 5:09 pm - Reply
    joaquin_s
    Hey MJ, after reading your post I had a lingering question. What kind of things will you include in your presentation to Mrs. Kubiak, and when are you going to present it to her?
    March 4, 2025 at 9:41 pm - Reply
    nico_l
    MJ, I still like the idea of the creation of your own curriculum for this kind of thing, but I am curious as to one thing. Will AI play a major role in subject matter of the course or will it be more focused on non neural-network types of robots?
    March 5, 2025 at 3:36 am - Reply
    mj_j
    Hello Joaquin. I have yet to establish a date for the presentation but it will be sometime in May. For the things that I will include in my presentation, it will include a brief overview of the course, its intended purpose, and why it would be useful to add the course in the first place. Obviously I go in depth about the course itself as well.
    March 9, 2025 at 3:49 pm - Reply
    mj_j
    Although AI will play a role (it would be a disservice to not include it in the curriculum), it won't be a major topic. It will be most likely (again, I will have to research some more to know for certain) covered towards the end of the year when we are wrapping up discussions about robotics and its future. Thanks for the great question!
    March 9, 2025 at 3:52 pm - Reply

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