Young Roboteers Club - Week 1

Week 1 was both rewarding and stressful, the stress was not down to the kids though, they were amazing. I'd been really nervous about working with children, you know the old adage, well so far, luckily for me I've found its not true. It really was worth all the weeks of preparation to get something together that would interest the kids.

The Young Roboteers this week consisted of 6 boys and 2 girls, not sure where the other 4 kids were, they were no shows, could be they were ill or otherwise disposed and will join us next week, but we're taking names for the places in the event that they have decided against attending. So if you live in or near Derby and could get to the Silk Mill every Saturday for the next 5 weeks, you're 11-14 and want to learn about robots and being a roboteer then get in touch with me and I'll add you to the standby list!

As part of the course we want to instil in the kids what its like working with other roboteers in the Roboteer community, and encourage them to work together as well as being in teams, but week 1 was all about getting to know each other, learning names, setting ground rules and having fun.
We started off looking at some clips from Robot Wars and talked about our experiences as roboteers, they got to meet Chompalot and ask questions, all of them were amazed at just how big he was.

Then we moved on to some history, having first asked what they thought a robot to be, the answers were interesting, lots of variations of what a robot is actually defined as, and no references to combat robots. From the opening discussion we moved on to start looking at the history of robot development and I took them as far back as 2,000 B.C. and looked at development of moving toys and moved on to automatons ending for this session in 1790.

Next we gave them a practical task to do, each child got to put together an electronic badge donated by Derby Makers, The badge is a simple circuit that connects a multi-colour LED to a battery, and the LED cycles through its colours continuously as long as the battery is connected. One of our adult helpers suggested using a small blob of blu-tak underneath the clasp to help secure the pin clasp for the badge in place, even then the kids struggled.

One of the girls though got my ingenuity award for the week, she rolled her piece of blutak into a sausage and used it to fix the clasp in place over the top, attaching each end of the 'sausage' to the circuit board. Her solution was copied by some of the boys who were struggling when I pointed it out. This is a perfect example as to why I think having female roboteers on a team is such a brilliant idea, we approach problems in a different way and find solutions that the guys don't consider, its ying and yang and I know Simon would agree, its what happens on our team. The task introduced them to soldering, a few had done it before, those that hadn't took to it like ducks to water :)

At this point, I can explain why week 1 of the course was stressy, but I must add it was before the event and NOTHING to do with our Young Roboteers, nope it was technology and supply and demand. We bought a Robot Buggy from Kitronik because we were looking for a small project that could be easily put together by children, and could be programmed to do simple tasks like line following, the Kitronik kit was perfect, and as a bonus you got to show the kids how to use a laser cutter which they have in the workshop at the Silk Mill to make the top panel, and a 3D printer which is used to make the additional pieces that get put on to customise your robot. Plus you can blue tooth it to remotely control it from an app, which was the final stage for the final week.

The kit was so perfect that I wrote the 5 week course almost entirely around activities we could do using the robot buggy, from building to coding and finally in week 5 having a set of Robot Games, where the kids get to put all they've learnt in to practice. Brilliant, yes? Not if the company selling the robot hasn't got 4 kits in stock that you need to get your Young Roboteers started! :(

So when it became apparent that the kits would be a no show, on Friday evening after some brain storming with our friend Graeme at the Silk Mill, we decided we'd use our ready made buggy and introduce the kit to the kids and explained what we hoped to do with it, and then introduced the BBC Microbit to them which they'd need to use to code the buggy to do its tasks. Some of them had not used a Microbit before, we got a volunteer from one of the kids that had and he put the code on to the Microbit, then we got the buggy to follow a wiggly line down the centre of the table. It worked like a charm!

Next we introduced the kids to the group project we'd be doing together to present at Maker Faire, although I need to add the whole project won't be done by the current group of Young Roboteers, they will be getting the project off the ground. Then subsequent groups will build on the project until 'Andrea Android' becomes autonomous and can help give tours around the Silk Mill.

Stage 1 - The group will help create a 'shoulder and chest' mount for the head using the laser cutter. During the 5 week club the project will be worked on adding servo’s, wiring etc so that the mouth, eyes and head will move.

Many of the parts including the head are 3D printed so we'll explain that and the build process and components used and what they do. The head which can be seen in the first photo will be attached to the chest and using Arduino we'll code the servos to move the eyes, mouth etc. Other groups will work on arms and the base and of course making Andrea Android look the part.

The final part of the afternoon, the Young Roboteers got the chance to drive the 3D printed baby Chompalot, which Simon put together originally just for fun, they were fascinated, one of the kids said that it was a lot harder to control than it looks and "they make it look so easy on the TV", point well observed that child! At the end of the session, each child was given a "Taking it Further" sheet which gives them the 5 suggestions for opportunities to learn more like watching YouTube videos, looking at links with more information on automaton's, watch a movie and finally do a little research/preparation for week 2. A couple of the kids didn't take their sheets home with them :oO Most did though!

I received some amazing feedback yesterday from a parent of one of the kids attending "Thank you for Saturday.  My son really enjoyed it and has done his homework without being asked too. Have you considered a career in education?" to me that made it all worthwhile, all the preparation, all the stress was so totally worth it, if just one kid gets inspired, what more can we ask. I loved it and I'm looking forward to meeting them all again next week to help them learn more.