Pauline Whitehouse
Hernhill CE Primary School

Before introducing the control box we spent a little time reviewing what the pupils already knew about programming the Roamer.

We began with a brief whole class session where the basic Roamer functions were demonstrated to the class. Then, working in small mixed ability groups over the next few days, the pupils practised familiar Roamer functions such as forward and backward movements, right and left turns, waiting and playing notes. In order to achieve this without needing any supervision, they worked with the help of a few laminated instruction cards, like the one shown here.

The groups made up their own activities for this task.

Here are some of their ideas:

Draw a chalk path on the floor made up of straight lines for the Roamer to 'walk' along. (The group discovered for themselves that curved lines were 'too hard' and also that turns other that right angles needed more thought.)

Use coloured sticky tape to mark out a roadway or 'race track' for the Roamer to move around. (Tape works well on carpeted areas where chalk would be inappropriate and it should come up easily without leaving marks.)

Build an obstacle course for the Roamer to negotiate. (They used piles of books.)

Draw a series of 'islands' on the floor for the Roamer to visit in turn. (This idea was developed further in two subsequent group projects.)

Points arising from this early work:

A very useful feature of the Roamer is that instructions can be added to the 'GO' program one at a time. However, the children often forgot when putting in a new instruction that it would be added on at the end of the instructions previously entered. They needed reminding to move the Roamer back to the original start position before pressing GO, or to press CE or CM CM if they wanted to make changes or begin again.

They soon discovered that keeping a written record of instructions was very useful indeed for repeating work, spotting logical errors or adapting their programs.

An idea for extension work:

Another activity I have used successfully with other groups in previous years involved making a road layout on the floor and setting the following challenge: "Imagine that the Roamer is an ice-cream van. Write a program to carry out these instructions: Drive along the main road, turn into the side road, stop at the end, play a jingle, wait while the customers buy their ice-creams, turn round and proceed to the next side road."