A Pilot Group Review of the LEGO®WeDo 2.0 Classroom Kit
Our first fun with LEGO® WeDo
What are our STEAM Pilots
We are always trying out new STEAM kits and ideas – The constant stream of innovation is honestly one of our favorite parts about the STEAM education industry right now…there’s a really high quality new toy out there just about every month! In this line of posts, we will give you an inside view of our experiences, good and bad, when we get our hands on these kits that hope to be the next big thing!
The Process
In this case, we’re taking a look at a major company’s updated offering – LEGO WeDo 2.0. We had held off on WeDo 1.0 due to some complexity issues with our age bracket (Grades 1-6) and have heard interesting things for the future on v2.0! The marketing was spruced up, and it seems like it would be a great new life for a promising idea…but nothing beats hands on play!
For our test this time, we chose two groups – Group 1: 7 & 8 year old boys; Group 2: a 6 and 9 year old girl. The ratio was 1 WeDo 2.0 Classroom unit for every 2 students. The concept of WeDo is simple – there are predefined building instructions and supplemental teaching videos. In this trial, not having gone through much of the videos ourselves, we elected to let the students choose their own paths.
To begin with, the packaging / storage takes some work to get set up correctly – it is not recommended that you allow the students to set them up the first time. The stickers are important to guide where to store each piece and make it easier to find things later on. Although, admittedly there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to where pieces are placed…This process took the better part of a half an hour.
Next, the process of getting the WeDo application is simple enough – We tried on both a windows PC and an iPad. This part was actually very well done. The kids found the software easy to use and easy to understand. Once they picked their paths, the work began. With an intuitive step by step guide, which felt much like reading the paper based LEGO instructions we’re well used to.
This is where the fun sort of fizzled. The designs were “OK” – the use of motors and some basic engineering makes it slightly more fun than a regular LEGO set, but the stories and videos that go with it don’t bring the magic to life the way we had anticipated. After making it 70% of the way there, our 6 & 7 Year old testers lost interest, even when we made some attempts at redirecting attention, they handed over the reigns fully to the older parties in the testing group. Those who were left did finish it, and they enjoyed racing around their cars, using their windmills, and lifting with their cranes accordingly.
Final Score: 2.9 / 5.0 kB
Overall we would say that WeDo has improved from the first round, but it is still lacking in an increasingly crowded STEAM space. That being said, here are our scores for our WeDo 2.0 pilot tests.
Scores Breakdown:
—2.4 / 5.0 Average STEAM Curriculum Score
