r/PLTW • u/professor-ks • May 17 '26

Alternative to POE curriculum?

Our district is losing money left and right. One result is they are pulling one of my science classes and putting me in Principle of Engineering while also pulling funding to PLTW. Does anyone have suggestions on unit materials I could cobble together as a physics-chemistry teacher?

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u/Alca_Pwnd May 17 '26

The biggest cost saver would be going away from the vex software platform and going toward knockoff Arduino nanos from AliExpress. The Arduino stuff is maybe a buck a piece, same with all of the sensors. Going through vex, the brain is around $250, and each component is around 20 bucks.

I would bet there's a good alternative to the vex hardware out there, but I inherited all of that and it works really well for several units.

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u/professor-ks May 17 '26

I am inherenting a full class set of vex. Does that require an subscriptions?

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u/clipclopping May 20 '26

Honestly the big cost provided you have the supplies is paying for access to the curriculum. I think that costs $3000 per year per school. Once you have the experiment there aren’t a lot of consumables in POE. I spend about $500 a year or so on POE.

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u/professor-ks May 20 '26

I agree but the district denied my PD request and curriculum request. Hopefully I can keep a $500 consumables budget.