Junkbots

Three schools have taken part of the project (62 students in all), so time to reflect on and summarise the project so far. Waste Management The waste management activities seem to engage from the point of view of helping them to understand their own impact both positively and negatively. “...it was cool to know what my carbon footprint is.” “... made me think about all the waste in the world.” “[I] now recycle” "Lots of information which was useful..."(Student BW-B) "I learnt a lot and calculating my carbon footprint was great" (Student BW-J) "I learnt about [Eco] stuff" (Student BW-S) "I found the waste management activity helpf[ul] because it showed me the truth of what we could do to help the earth" (Student BW-T) "I liked the presentation we were given...interesting facts which we will remember a long time" (Student BW-V) Junkbot building "We had the [f]reedom to show the teachers what skills we have" (Studen...

Thank you to the staff and students at Junkbots at Moulton School and Science College for their involvement with the Junkbots project. This time the students taking part where in year 7 (previously they had been in year 8) Overall the feedback was positive (see below), with 12 out 13 (5 replies were not available) at a rating of 3 out of 5 or above. The approach taken was a little more structured with time allocation more tightly controlled, especially in the junk robot building exercises and programming. . The programmed robots generally performed very well completing the tasks set. Of particular note were two solutions from the one group that showed avoidance behaviour: One solution used an ultrasonic sensor and the robot didn't move until an object was placed in front of it; A second moved towards an object, detected it using a light sensor and went around the object.