Educational Robotics should be here…

Earlier this year, I wanted to start a robotics club with crowdfunding and achieved about 10% of the target so let’s look at the results in the younger 4 to 7 yrs old and the older 8 yrs old onwards group respectively. 

Younger age kids – Parents and concentration time.

Kids at this age group 4 to 7 are very young and just entering school age in the UK. I managed to inspired a parents to purchase their own robots to play at home which was not my objective. It does show that parents can see the role that Education Robotics can play. It does give him about 20 minutes of concentration time. 

Another type of Robotics Club is a family play time, where I defined different roles to build a functioning robot. The entire session takes 20 minutes and the end result is a functional robot, which the child can control via bluetooth at the end. The whole robotic kit works surprisingly well. This session gives a family activities time. I certainly enjoy with my child.   

The child’s programming develops from pressing buttons, to planning and use of programming cards to create a longer repeatable sequence of actions, to loops and if statements. The robotic platform for this age is actually better than I thought. And by the age of 7, they can program the robot to complete a task and avoid obstacles, with for loops and if loops. The McRobotFace Robotics Club will use each robotic platform to  its full potential.    

Older age kids (8 onwards)

The older age there are more dimensions to work in. The kids at this age tends to be able to concentrate for 45 minutes and enjoys building and assembling kits. In the robotics club, I defined clear roles as per an engineering organisation and will develop their teamwork.

The sessions have two themes. 1. To play and 2. Science. The first theme is to play, build something, test it and enjoy the process. The second theme is unique to the club, where I provide an academic focus. The Scientific Method forms a huge part of robotics, so a lot of experimentations, making hypotheses, collecting data, presenting results, discussions and drawing conclusions.

The potential for this kit is to the customisation to create something that is unique. More experience and insight in the geometry of this robotic kit will unlock additional designs.

The kids in the older sessions will learn to build robots in a engineering context. Program the robot that they build. Discussing what do they need to create a robot to complete a task.

In conclusion

These Educational robots have existed for a while now (3 years). However, there are not widely available which is unfortunate as they can inject energy into the  educational environment to increase concentration time, the sessions can carry a lot of theory and learn from practical experimentation. I am so pleased to see kids enjoying and developing their understanding in robotics. If these results so far are 10% of what I aimed for then I am very excited about the times ahead at the McRobotFace Robotics Club.