School aged students have had the opportunity to build their own functional robots at a holiday robotics workshop.
There were two workshops hosted by Western Enrichment Learning Lab (WELL) on January 17 which allowed school aged students to build and code a range of robots using LEGO Spike Essential and LEGO Spike Prime robotics kits, and Chromebook computers.
Western Enrichment Learning Lab's Anthony Head said this is the first time they have come to Parkes and had 27 kids take part across the two workshops at the Marramarra Makerspace Studio.
The first workshop saw 13 students ranging from kindy to Year 5 using LEGO Spike Essential robotics kits to build and code their robots.
Mr Head said they were encouraging the children to grow in their computational thinking, looking at algorithms and processes that are involved in robotics.
Latest Stories
"As well as actually building the robot with the LEGO which is very familiar for most children, we have been using Scratch Junior coding for them to bring their robots to life," Mr Head said.
During this workshop, the children made three different robots, which included an underwater quest, where the children built a submarine that went down onto a simulated coral reef.
"As well as doing the coding to make the submarine actually move down on to the reef they had a coloured light display which they had to use to simulate the colours of the coral," Mr Head said.
Following this they had a simulated coral bleaching event, where the children had to code for the coral to turn white, the submarine to leave the area and then return once the coral had returned to normal.
In the afternoon workshop, there were 14 students ranging from year five to year nine using LEGO Spike Prime Robotics kits to build two robots, one of which was a breakdancing robot, the other one was a hopper.
Mr Head said they undertook a similar sort of process as the first workshop but had more involved builds and much more involved coding.
Participants not only had to code the movement of the robot, they also introduced computer generated musical instruments so they could create choreography for the robot.
For the hopper, the students had to build a robot that could walk around snf code it to navigate an obstacle course.
Mr Head said one of the key things they do in the workshops is take the coding a lot further than what may be happening when robotics are used in schools.
Building of the LEGO model gives the students a familiar context for them to do the coding, Mr Head said, with a lot of other coding education is all on the screen with animation and games.
"This combines the coding on the screen with the physical manipulation of the LEGO," he said.
Starting in October, 2023 Western Enrichment Learning Lab is based in Bathurst and provides robotics education and other types of enrichment learning throughout the Central West.
