Hugo - Sense & Control

Over the holiday, we sat and watched Hugo. I'd forgotten that this film was based on the book by Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. It is a stunning book being an amalgamation of text and images, not a graphic novel but not an illustrated book either. The film was an excellent re-telling of the story and I was especially taken with the automaton.

Scholastic (2007)  ISBN 978-1-407103-48-8

Later on, I started going over conversations that I've had with teachers who seem to be interested in teaching Control but ignore the importance of Sensing. This is where the automaton comes in, it was a beautiful example of control but this was a very limited machine. Add in the flexibility of it being able to respond to external stimuli and you've really got something - a robot. 

Automaton from the film - Hugo

I'd love to see a thoughtful, integrated scheme for Sense & Control across the curriculum.

I also got round to looking up Kodu from Microsoft. This visual programming language has come up increasingly when I've tried to engage teachers with Scratch. However, no-one has been able to tell me anything about it apart from it's a programming language suitable for children. I haven't had a go yet but will let you know how I get on and maybe make a comparison with Scratch.
I also need to sort out 2Simple NXT and Lego, and We-Do from Lego but need to get a fair bit more work to make these purchases viable.
Still, the future is always interesting and who knows what's around the corner.