McRobotface Robotics Club

I ran the club for about 6 months now. So lots of experience in how kids learn with educational robots. The next step is to refine into ages and additional skills, like teamwork, communication and presentation.

Ages and Skills

The recommendation for age 5 to 7 is to play with their parents. The parents can explain my instructions and achieve the defined learning objectives. Kids in general, like to impress their parents and concentrate more. Some kids were able to concentrate for 20 minutes which was surprising to their parents. Parents like to see their kids concentrate and they will always learn something in an abstraction approach. A left arrow suggests a 90 degrees turn left action. A series of actions can lead to a goal.

The club moves towards team play for ages 8 onwards. The goal is to run competitions. They can work towards the more advanced programming functions such as loops combined with conditional functions for behaviour such as maze solving. The process enhances their teamwork and communication skills. I create unique challenges to use the full potential of educational robotics with the colour, proximity and obstacle sensors. This is also the age where the McRobotface Robotics club goes to school. The high number of participants will unlock competitions. Kids with different roles in the team and rotates throughout the term, and need to work together to complete challenges. I think that is very applicable in modern engineering roles as we all work in a team and the key is to bring all the qualities and knowledge together and achieve the objectives.

At age 11 to 13, the activities are more academic and relate to the curriculum in terms of Scientific Method and covers more Physics. The Scientific Method is about making hypotheses and asking questions, conducting experiments and writing up the findings. I am inspired by Prof. Whitesides’ paper on writing paper at a Harvard University Postgraduate level. Energy interactions happened to be part of my PhD. I look to combine the teamwork for the competitions, with more presentation, structuring the write up.

How would this relate to a Scholarship?

The completion of this club will lead to high proficiency in the following ; teamwork, presentation, scientific method, STEM understanding and evidence in creating unique behaviours or robots. So in the next 5 years from 13 years olds. They can pick their options and take steps towards their aspirations if the individuals want a career in Engineering. They can look at the IMechE or IEEE for all the information to become one. I hope to inspire kids to consider a career in Formula 1 because it is a great place to start. I previously explained a potential route to start a career in Formula 1.