Hello, world! We are a high school robotics team from Madison, NJ. Our members range in age from 13 to 18 (judges, take note!). We compete in the annual First Tech Challenge. Every year, our school holds a Day of Service, which lets students participate in various community service programs or design their own. Last year was our first as a team, but we decided to create our own outreach program for elementary school students to introduce them to robotics and get them interested in hands-on learning. The fourth grade classes we visited enjoyed it so much that we expanded and improved it for this year's Day of Service. The kids loved it, and we can't wait to do it again next year. We thought other robotics groups, and the instructables community in general, might be interested in what we did, so we made this instructable. Since every program of this kind will differ based on the available materials and the intended audience, this will be mostly a description of what we did and how we did it. We hope it inspires other groups to adapt it and make their own outreach programs.
P.S. This is entered in the robotics contest, so votes would be appreciated. Thanks!
P.S. This is entered in the robotics contest, so votes would be appreciated. Thanks!
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Signing UpStep 1: The Game
We decided to put our introduction to robotics into the form of a game, played on a square field made of foam tiles. The team members designed the field and the game's rules together. There were many versions, but the final one involved moving small plastic balls into goals to score points. The field included several fun elements (see the diagram and pictures below) to make the game engaging and interesting.
The game was played with six robots at a time—three on the red team and three on the blue team. We'll get to the robots themselves in few steps, but they all had the ability to move the plastic balls around. The teams could score points by placing the balls in their color-coded goals—regular white balls were worth one point, special red and blue balls were worth two points. Only a few balls started out on the field, but the robots could get more by knocking over wooden blocks with balls on top of them, driving up one of two ramps onto a raised platform, or pressing a button that caused a ball to be spit out from a ball launcher in one corner of the field. All of this required teamwork: if only one robot drive up a ramp to the raised platform, the ramp would tip and the robot would get stuck. For one robot to make it to the top, another had to hold down the bottom of the ramp. The robots could also coordinate launching the balls with positioning a pivoting wall in the center of the field so that the balls would be deflected directly into their goals. There were only three two-point bonus balls: one on top of the raised platform, one trapped under a crate on the field, and one at the end of the ball launcher's magazine.
The game was played with six robots at a time—three on the red team and three on the blue team. We'll get to the robots themselves in few steps, but they all had the ability to move the plastic balls around. The teams could score points by placing the balls in their color-coded goals—regular white balls were worth one point, special red and blue balls were worth two points. Only a few balls started out on the field, but the robots could get more by knocking over wooden blocks with balls on top of them, driving up one of two ramps onto a raised platform, or pressing a button that caused a ball to be spit out from a ball launcher in one corner of the field. All of this required teamwork: if only one robot drive up a ramp to the raised platform, the ramp would tip and the robot would get stuck. For one robot to make it to the top, another had to hold down the bottom of the ramp. The robots could also coordinate launching the balls with positioning a pivoting wall in the center of the field so that the balls would be deflected directly into their goals. There were only three two-point bonus balls: one on top of the raised platform, one trapped under a crate on the field, and one at the end of the ball launcher's magazine.
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