Junkbots

An undergraduate dissertation student is looking for help. James is a computing student looking at robot designs for primary education towards his dissertation and as part of the wider  Junkbots project , and the working going on in both the Department of Computing and Immersive Technologies, and School of Education on Physical Computing at the University of Northampton. The short questionnaire can be found at  http://t.co/zdomXnW2Qe  and is aimed at gathering  a variety of responses from both current Teachers, Students of Education and from anyone with knowledge of programming teaching methods in both Key Stage 1 and 2. He is planning to create a product which aims to teach programming methods and practices based on the current and new national curriculum. If you would like to know more about the Junkbots project contact scott.turner@northampton.ac.uk

Last Wednesday (11th June 2012) junkbots returned home. During the Inspiring Girls into Engineering event held at the School of Science and Technology, University of Northampton a junkbots session was held. Two groups of girls from two local primary schools built a drawing junkbots remarkably quickly (going to have to think of ways to extending it!) that - drew patterns without anyone touching it; -carried the battery pack (4 AA batteries) Details of the work developed and a case study can be found at:  http://www.hestem-sw.org.uk/project?id=16&pp=540 Details of the case study can be found at:  http://projects.hestem-sw.org.uk/upload/Junkbot_june_northampton.pdf Details of an in-school session plan can be found at:  http://projects.hestem-sw.org.uk/upload/Planning_Process_junkbots_KS3_4_longer.docx Details of an STEM club session plan can be found at:  http://projects.hestem-sw.org.uk/upload/Planning_Process_junkbots_primary_short8.docx If...

The results of a funding from HE STEM South West has enabled the junkbot project to go into primary schools and the material to be revised based on good practice in STEM public engagement in primary schools .  The funding looked at adopted the ideas and practice developed previously to produce STEM activities in this case targeted at Primary schools. Details of the work developed and a case study can be found at:  http://www.hestem-sw.org.uk/project?id=16&pp=540 Details of the case study can be found at:  http://projects.hestem-sw.org.uk/upload/Junkbot_june_northampton.pdf Details of an in-school session plan can be found at:  http://projects.hestem-sw.org.uk/upload/Planning_Process_junkbots_KS3_4_longer.docx Details of an STEM club session plan can be found at:  http://projects.hestem-sw.org.uk/upload/Planning_Process_junkbots_primary_short8.docx Junkbots on Prezi If you would like to know more about th...

On the 30th April 2012 the junkbots project went to Wootton Primary's STEM club. The task was challenging to design and to build junkbots that can draw in less than 45 minutes...and they did. Great work and some engineers/technologists for the future. Thank you to Mrs Meadows and all the children of the STEM club for inviting me. If you would like to know more about the Junkbots project contact scott.turner@northampton.ac.uk

Friday 16th March 2012, the junkbots project moved to year 6 at Roade Primary School.  The aim was to Look in to how to use electric motors to make junk move, along with the effect of weight, surface contact effects and positioning of the weights. The task was to make something that could move along a table as quickly as possible. Good example is the 'sleigh' shown above, a mixture of straws, yoghurt pots, pens, plastics and electric motors. What was especially good about this one was - it went in a straight line, shaking its way along and even carried its batteries. This was especially good as usually these junkbots have a tendency to spin around. The group that developed this one investigated repositioning the batteries, thereby adjusting the weight to get it to travel in a straight line. Thank you to the year 6 at Roade Primary School for inviting me, lots of budding engineers there. If you want to know more about Junkbots please contact:  scott.turner@northampto...

The Junkbots project, has up to this point, being focussed on students between the ages 11-14 years old. Recent developments in the project have lead to some of the material being delivered to younger children. During September 2010  the robot programming side of the project was both developed further and delivered by the two new facilitators Kumuditha Kariyawasam and Aleksandra Dziubek.(see picture), two final year Computing students from the School of science and Technology, University of Northampton, UK. Their material was developed to make this side of project more accessible to a younger group, but also to appeal to girls a little more. An example of the material can be found by clicking on the link here . Along side this in November, the part of project building robots out of 'junk' was used with a group of Beaver Scouts (5-8 years old) in a Northamptonshire village. One of the Beaver's said he wants to build a "junkbot factory". The success and the le...