Junkbots

Students at Brooke Weston School, Corby have been working with the University of Northampton's School of Science and Technology on the junkbots project. Scott Turner and Terry Tudor on the 16th and 17th February 2010 went to the school to run the sessions. Starting with a talk and activities on waste management, including how much waste the UK produced, and in terms of numbers of slices of toast what is the cost of energy of leaving a monitor on overnight.   The task was to produce robots out of rubbish that could carry other rubbish into a containment area. The change made to the sessions was that students brought there own 'junk' to the sessions. S ome innovative and creative designs were produced involving 'legs', wheels (including turning cans into wheels and wheels from old toys).    Some of the designs pushed rubbish into the area, but one of the designs carried the rubbish into the area and some designs used magnets to pick up small steel parts (nuts a...

Feedback from the sessions in December are very encouraging. When students were asked to grade out of 5 the sessions overall ( scores with 1 being poor and 5 excellent) of the twenty replies received 100% were rate at 4 (65%)or 5(35%). In all the questions asked, the feedback was in the majority rated three or above. For this group of the students the creative aspects of the activities engaged them and this was reflected in their feedback. Quotes from some of the students: “it was fun and creative, I learnt quite a bit” “It let use be creative with our design.” “it opened my eyes to engineering” This last one is especially of note as the aim of the project is to encourage engagement with Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects. 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...