Robert E. Morgan

I. WHAT IS THE "BIG LOADER"
(These photos and movies deal with the OLD
Big Loader made by Tomy. If you'd prefer
the old, try eBay. If you can't find one, this version,
minus the decals, still works for teachers.

The "Big Loader" is a toy made by Tomy Toys for small children. At least, that's what Tomy has to say about it. Actually, it's a great toy for small children. But I've found it a useful educational toy for students up through adults. What the "Big Loader" toy does is remarkably simple. A battery powered little truck goes round and round picking up, scooping, and dumping little pieces of black "coal." That's it. Over and over and over. It collects the coal from one place, dumps it, scoops it up, and dumps it back into the hopper where it will pick it up again to repeat the cycle. The numbered spots in the picture above will give you some idea of the sequence. At spot 1 the truck changes tops to a collector top, moves to spot 2 on the track and collects little pieces of coal by tripping a lever on a hopper so that the coal is dumped into the collector. At spot 3 it dumps the coal into a chute. The pieces of coal roll down the cascading chute and land on the track at number 4. The truck continues all the way around to area 4, changing to a standard truck top on the way, and then changing to a scooper. It scoops up the coal and deposits it in the ramp at number 5. The pieces of coal roll into the truck body which is parked there. After scooping, it backs up, picks up the truck top containing the coal and backs up a ramp at spot 6 only to dump the coal into the hopper at number 2. The truck climbs down the ramp and continues the cycle again. Confused? Well, it's a little hard to describe. The point is that this cleverly designed toy repeats operations over and over again. That's it. You just watch.

To see a quicktime movie of Big Loader working,
click HERE
(compliments of the oldtoystore.com)

Big Loader with regular truck	Big Loader truck with no tops	Transfer point: regular truck on the right, hopper car on the left
The "scooper"	Getting ready to dump the coal (position 6)	Dumping the coal (view from the top)

 

II. SO...WHAT'S SO EDUCATIONAL ABOUT THAT?

Well, that's a good question. I use the "Big Loader" in a number of different ways.

• Sequential thinking skills. Because the Big Loader does things in an orderly, repeating sequence, there's a lot that can be done with sequential thinking skills. You can certainly introduce the concept of sequence, which, although it sounds simple, is really a new thing to many students. Depending on the age of the student, I use the Big Loader as a motivator for list writing. I ask students to write a list of the steps that the Big Loader takes. It's amazing what students will do. In a given class, I'll get lists with 7 steps and lists with 50 steps. Getting students (of any age) to really observe and break down an activity into its individual components is a worthwhile activity.
• Programming skills. Because I teach computer science, any toy which shows activity in a sequence is valuable for teaching programming. When one writes a program, one must be concerned about sequence. Because Big Loader operates sequentially, it can be considered a real-world computer program. There are countless ways to use it...looping becomes very graphic with Big Loader.
• Attention span. It's fascinating to watch kids watch Big Loader. Some will tire in minutes, most will watch for 10 - 15 minutes and some, depending on age, will watch for a lot longer. Many will want to come back later and watch it again. Although it's certainly informal assessment, a teacher can learn a lot about attention span.

 

Help me expand this list, send your ideas for using Big Loader to me at rmorgan@us.edu. Appropriate credit will be given for all ideas used

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Copyright (c) 2005 Robert Morgan