Botiful Beginnings
Our first workshop was a blast! These guys were not merely participants in the Bots 4 Tots program; they made history by being the first ever group that we’ve hosted! Here we are in front of the workshop room, located in the back of the Robot City Workshop, where all the building took place that fateful Saturday the 16th of May, 2009. Don, our volunteer helper Casey (a good friend of ours- pictured next to me, behind the kids, above) and I were so delighted to work with the kids, and not to mention impressed with how quickly they took ownership of the project! The most important part of the experience was in the fun and discovery of learning and building!
When we arrived, Don Casey and I were welcomed by Kevin of Robot City Workshop’s rendition of our logo (above)! Greg Gilla welcomed us and made sure that everything was in place for our monumental undertaking, and then our new friends and fellow roboticists, the workshop participants, started arriving!
After a brief look at the instructions, we fielded some questions about robots and electronics. The PC Board was a thing of mystery as the kids first took it out of the box, but after a quick breakdown of what a circuit is and how electricity makes its way through the board, we were all a little more familiar with the goings on of our respective robot’s brains. We did a preliminary test, attaching the sensor, the motor, and the battery pack to the PCB to be certain that each one was working within specified parameters before venturing forth into the great unknown!
Getting right to work, we started with the locomotive innards- the gearbox! Don and I were available for questions and help as Casey sat at the end of the table and built his own Jungle Robot for the first time alongside the kids. At first the kids seemed to be expecting a step by step breakdown, but we asked them all to look over the instructions, inspect the elements of the first task, and try it once themselves. Were we ever impressed to find that everyone was successful on his own, without any hand-holding at all! All we had to do was go around and make sure everything looked right with the gear boxes before moving on! We all tested our gearboxes in unison, all with great success, and then continued to assemble the body of the bot around it!
It was only a hop, skip and a jump from there to the assembly of the body. I took over the documentation of the workshop as it progressed, the kids busily buzzing away and testing the motors after the completion of each major step. As they made sure the axle was turning through the body encasement, I could see each one of them applying the understanding that he had just gained of the PCB and the motor with the way the legs were going to be attached. Exclamations of enlightenment were abound! Don rapped with the kids about the finer points of tapping screws and sockets, and then before we knew it, heads were being attached!
We’ll be finishing up our first workshop this coming Friday (the 22nd of May, 2009), at 826CHI’s The Boring Store, where the kids will put the finishing touches on their robots. We’ll be talking about what was learned through the workshop, and writing about the experience, and celebrating a job well done! Look forward to pictures, writings, and the announcement of our second workshop this summer!
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