The Lighthouse 5's
Systems
James is aboard the Giant Peach with his insect companions, escaping from thrashing sharks, lassoing seagulls, confusing a sea captain and trying to keep the earthworm calm. We have been sharing his adventures and wondering where they will all end up. We have also been busy in our workshop creating his new friend. Leonardo Da Vinci sent us some pieces for a mechanical person which he just didn’t have time to make, so we measured these and assembled them. To do this, we found out about the Skeletal System. We visited Dr Knee and her friend Marvin the skeleton. We found out about all the joints in the body; hinge joints, ball and socket joints and pivot joints. This is helping us to put together our robot so that she will move just like James.
Then we had to consider how she might be helped to move. How does our body know how to move? There is another system in our body which helps us to move and the brain is the control centre. Don’t be scared when we tell you that this system is the Nervous System!
We flew in the Peach to Dr Cerebellum’s Brain Laboratory to find out about the brain, and to have a go at making one from play-dough. They have lots of grooves and a special part just for sensing and regulating movement messages called the cerebellum.
If our brain is in charge of our movements, like a control centre, then how can we use this information to help our robot friend to move? We needed to learn some coding to program our friend, so we explored Scratch Jr. We explored how to program characters to move about, and we all got a chance to share this at the Student Led Conferences. Now we can use this to program some fun actions and games that our robot friend can share with James.
All that is left to do is to get her to James, but how? He’s in the middle of the ocean!! We’re sure the Lighthouse Keepers will find a way.
Cressida Batterham-Wilson & Clinton Morgan
The Fives Classroom Teachers