After week 1 and the non-arrival of the Robot Buggy kits, I have to admit I went in to a bit of a panic, as I said last week, I've written the whole 5 week course based on what we could do with the robot buggy kit from understanding the components, to building, coding, controlling and ultimately competing in a Robot Games event in week 5. I'm still hopeful we can do that, although I'm becoming more doubtful that it will be based on the Kitronik buggy.
On Sunday morning I went in to planning and adapting mode, and by the end of the day after consulting with Simon, I could present Graeme - our co-conspirator on the project - with a back up plan. I admit that I was feeling bad because I'd seen the faces of the kids when we explained on week 1 what we had in store, and I knew I'd have to tell them it may not happen now. :(
The new plan was to get the Silk Mill to get us 2 MeArm kits which they thankfully did, so the kids could be split in to two groups and would still have something to build, code and control, and work as a team on. The build starts next week, this week they got to drive our practice robot and each young roboteer got the chance to bring the robot to a standstill in a u shaped enclosure, the rule was you couldn't touch the sides and had to get as close as you could to the back.
I know I shouldn't be biased, but I have to admit at being both delighted and proud that of all nine roboteers, the two girls did the best, the winner - who got just 2mm away from the back of the U - was the same girl who impressed me with her ingenuity last week. One of the girls did ask why there were only 2 girls on the course, I told her that they were the only ones that applied, she said bless her, "they are probably scared that they will show the boys up", my answer "why be scared of that"? I did go on to point out that in this group you're not a girl, you're a roboteer, both girls went off with a smile, neither of them are afraid and are happy to have a go, which is super, some of the boys are not so eager to have a go though, which amazed me.
I did witness sulky boys when the girls did better, and some boys raised objections that the girls were not doing it right, they were! Plus not all the boys stayed on point, the goal was to drive round, avoid the obstacles and reverse into the U without colliding with anything, which translated to 2 boys in particular as drive round like lunatics, smash into everything and destroy the obstacle, doh!
Moving on, after the driving practice I started the history part of the session, first asking the kids to tell me what they had found out about the Father of Computing and Mother of Computing, it alarmed me that a couple of the boys hadn't bothered to find out who Ada Lovelace was, mentioning only Charles Babbage, I had added a bit about both to the presentation so first talked about that and handed out an info sheet on Ada Lovelace which explained a little of what she did.
As last week was the first time I'd 'taught' kids, I had some things to learn, one of them was to make the history lesson more 21st century! Last week's history session was me talking to the kids and referring to some small pictures on a piece of paper. I watched their reaction, even I thought it was flat and boring, not the content, just the delivery.
That had to change, I was hindered slightly by the fact that one of the kids last week had a cold and passed it on to me, so I was a tad poorly for a few days, it got round to Thursday and I hadn't written the history part, so I settled down to get on with it. In planning the course I'd decided that from a historical perspective we'd look at the following subjects: - Automatons, Mechanical Machines, Rise of the Robots, Technology & Toys and The Future of Robots.
I also wanted to start way back in history, which we did with the first 'moving' toys that Egyptian children would have played with in 2,000 B.C.. Introducing the concept of movement, and crude robot forms, and to show how robots have developed and evolved, working through to the current day and getting the kids to imagine what the future will hold robotically in our final session.
As the week 1 history session went well, being flat aside, I decided to make it more relevant to how kids seemingly learn today and put together a PowerPoint presentation. Bigger images, and most importantly some video clips, to bring the history alive, plus they contained lots of information that came from the time period referred to, and meant I wasn't talking 'AT' them all the time. The clip above looked at Eric the Robot, I instructed the kids to pay particular attention to what the women said when she introduced Eric at the beginning of this video, and then pointed out that after all she said, it was the man that 'controlled' the robot! Incidentally it was most gratifying when one of the boys made reference to the modern day robot Eric meme.
I'd decided that in charting the history of robots we couldn't ignore computers, as part of my session I told the kids "When you’re thinking about the development and evolution of robots, it’s impossible to not include computers as part of that history." adding that "Many of today’s advanced robots contain computerised components and are controlled by programs which are input from computers. For instance the BBC Microbit we used last week to pass instructions to the Robot Buggy to follow the line is a perfect example of a computer program controlling a robot."
The kids got it and were fascinated by the presentation which started with Babbage and Lovelace and their work with the difference engine and moved through Jacquard and his work with the Punched Card System in 1801, Zadock Dederick's Steam Man, Robot Eric, Alan Turing's Machine and Bombes and how they eventually helped us win WWII and ended in 1939 with Elektro the 'Smoking Robot' no relation to Chompalot lol!
Standing at over 7ft tall and weighing 265lbs Elektro was an exhibit at the New York Worlds Fair in 1939 and was dubbed as one of the first humanoid robots in appearance. He was very similar to Eric in design and construction, but Elektro could walk by voice command, speak about 700 words (using words recorded on a disc played on a 78-rpm record player - it was fun explaining those to the kids!), he smoked cigarettes (which I described to the kids as being one of the most pointless things to teach a robot ever!) It could blow up balloons, and move his head and arms. Elektro's body consisted of a steel gear, cam and motor skeleton covered by an aluminium skin. His photo-electric "eyes" could distinguish red and green light. After his successful 1939 appearance Elektro reappeared at that fair in 1940, with Sparko, a robot dog that could bark, sit, and beg.
I was amazed at the different reaction adding in some colour, bigger images and videos had. The session also sparked more questions and ideas from the kids in-between slides, which was pretty gratifying :) After the history session, Simon talked the kids through the components in the practice robot, the kids got a sheet to take home with a diagram on of the inside of the practice bot, with additional information and some links to find out more about building a basic robot.
We introduced servo control which will be used in the Andrea Android project we're putting together with the kids for Maker Faire, and showed the signals generated by motors and servos on a digital oscilloscope. We chatted about the kinds of things that computers can control, a task that required that the kids had done the second part of their preparation for week 2, which they had hurrah, and finished off looking at the MeArm we'll be putting together next week. We also looked at what the kids will be doing next week, tasks include using a laser cutter and looking at a 3D printer as well as more robot history.
I have to say that putting this course together has been totally rewarding, seeing the excitement in the kids faces and watching them discover something new is pretty amazing, I was blown away at the end of the session this week though, when one of the kids made a point of thanking me for teaching him useful and interesting stuff, pointing out that lessons at places like this are usually boring, but ours was fun and interesting. During the session he was full of questions and suggestions and it was obvious he was getting a lot from the session, his words spoken like a man not a boy and his reaction throughout the whole session made all the work to get something put together so totally worth it :) I just have to do it again now for week 3!
Incidentally coming back to what the girls said earlier asking why more girls hadn't taken part, we're baffled, we have a couple of places that despite being booked the kids didn't show up on week 1 or 2, so if you're a girl and live in Derby and can get to the Silk Mill for 1:30 on Saturday 1st October 2016, then get in touch with me @GroovySci on Twitter or contact the Silk Mill, come and show the boys how its done because #girlscanrobot.
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