We recently had the pleasure of being invited back to Holmewood House School for two more days of workshops; a Sphero obstacle course and our Robot Petting Zoo. We’ve delivered workshops here in the past and were delighted to be invited back for more, today I’m going to tell you about our Robot Petting Zoo workshop with year 4 children.
What is a Robot Petting Zoo?
As the name suggests, the Robot Petting Zoo workshop involves children building their own robotic creatures! With this their imaginations really ran wild with a rather eclectic collection, ranging from fire-breathing dragons to piranhas, a ghost and even a flying pig!
In this particular workshop we allowed the children to be flexible in their ideas by choosing their own designs, however, we can easily adapt our workshops to fit a theme or particular learning topic, for example bringing characters from a story to life or portraying a moment in history.
Starting with Coding
Before the children began building their creatures we gave them a brief introduction to robotics and they investigated how we can use a micro:bit and MakeCode to make things happen! The children enjoyed making an image appear on the micro:bit’s LED display before learning how to program a motor to make things move.
Designing and Building a Robotic Creature
Once they had got to grips with the coding they designed their creatures on paper first before they began building, they used their coding knowledge to incorporate a motor into their builds to add movement such as wagging tails, shaking heads and even a protruding tongue.
At the end we put all the creatures on display, after the children had modified their code so the robots reacted to “on loud sound” here’s the result:
The Robot Petting Zoo workshop can be adapted around any theme. We also run similar workshops in the form of bringing the Iron Man to life and our popular Box Bot. Click here to take a look at our range of popular STEM workshops. If you would like to book this workshop in your own school or business, please use our contact page to get in touch!