4.4. Structuring and development of the project
The project was divided into 6 large stages: analysis, design, construction, description, programming and integration. Each stage was planned to last one or two weeks. This provisional schedule was of course modified according to the progression of the groups’ work. The scheduling tool provided by SPLACH made these adjustments easy.
The experiment lasted for about three months, with the students using the SPLACH environment for about two or three hours each week. Every Friday lunchtime, ninety minutes were set aside for synchronous meeting phases between teammates. Outside these times learner groups could work on the project whenever they wanted to, and communicate asynchronously via E-mail or the discussion forum.
During the analysis stage, learners were asked to try to divide the robot up into three modules. During the asynchronous phase of this stage each group defined the various modules they had identified and then presented them to the others during the synchronous meeting (Figure 6). Thus the students had to discuss this division until they reached agreement, then split the various modules between themselves