Skip to main content

Return to South End

During National Science and Engineering Week 2013, as part of the activities provided by the University of Northampton, the Junkbots project returned as part of programme of activities to South End Primary School, Rushden, northamptonshire, UK. 


National Science and Engineering Week is annual event celebrating science and engineering activities (http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/national-science-engineering-week)

Last year during the same week Junkbots also formed part of the activities (see http://junkbots.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/junkbots-goes-south.html).




This time we worked with two classes - a year 2 and a year 5 class; building the drawing junkbot. Examples of previous drawing junkbots are shown above. Approximately 50 children took part across the two 45 minute activities.

Essentially a drawing junkbot is based around a drinks can that:
- draw patterns without anyone touching it;
-carried the battery pack or not depends on the age of the group;
-moves by shaking a can using an unbalanced motor with 'legs' make from pens.


Related links



If you would like to know more about the Junkbots project contact scott.turner@northampton.ac.uk

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

junkbots 3 - bring it all together

Junkbots session 3: Move the robot but now there are rocks in the way.  This is the last of three posts - Introduction and sequence - Loops and just having fun - This one: Making decisions and bringing it all together. What is the Junkbots project The Junkbots project has been running for a number of years as an initiative to bring sustainability, computing and engineering together by building bots out of junk; details of the project can be found at.  https://junkbots.blogspot.com/  . Junkbots is an extension of the Research into the teaching problem-solving going on at the University of Northampton please feel to visit  https://computingnorthampton.blogspot.com/2019/01/problem-solving-research-outputs-and.html  for more details.   What are we going to do? ·         Play with a Scratch robot on the screen! ·         Build on the routines from the previous session. ·    ...

Junkbot Raspberry Pi: 3 How to do it

Figure 1 In previous posts I start looked at using ScratchGPIO to control a junkbot  ( http://junkbots.blogspot.com/2014/08/junkbot-pi-1-scratchgpio.html ) and showed a Pi controlled junkbot briefly in action ( http://junkbots.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/junkbot-raspberry-pi-2-raspberry-pi.html ). In this post I aim to discuss - Choice of motor controller card - Provide an example of a drawing junkbot controlled through Scratch and Raspberrry Pi Choice of interface/Controller card The card choosen was the 4Tronix PiRoCon card  ( http://4tronix.co.uk/store/index.php?rt=product/product&product_id=182 ). Selected for four reasons - Price is reasonable (in my opinion). - Fits straight onto the Pi through the GPIO - no extra cables needed. - ScratchGPIO has it as an addon so it makes programming it even easier (see http://cymplecy.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/pirocon-from-4tronix/ ). - Others are using it for robot projects. Use it is quite easy plug the board directl...

Junkbots: Move the robot

3 MINUTE READ Junkbots session 1: Move the robot from  Junkbots: Move the robot by  Scott Turner What is the Junkbots project The Junkbots project has been running for a number of years as an initiative to bring sustainability, computing and engineering together by building bots out of junk; details of the project can be found at. https://junkbots.blogspot.com/ . Junkbots is an extension of the Research into the teaching problem-solving going on at the University of Northampton please feel to visit https://computingnorthampton.blogspot.com/2019/01/problem-solving-research-outputs-and.html for more details. What are we going to do? Play with a Scratch robot on the screen! Guess what the routine does. Run the routine see if it does as we guessed. Consider what it did and if it is different to what we thought it was going to do. Change the routine a little bit to do another task. Activity 1: What blocks are we using? This means when the green flag is pressed do whatever foll...