Junkbots

The junkbots project has now being running for 18 months in Northamptonshire, UK. But how have the junkbots being built? A video produced by one of the particpants can be found here , showing some of the examples. Several ways have been investigated by the participants in the next few blogs some of these will be talked about. Let's start with the main approach, simplest way and probably the quickest:- A drink can and an unbalanced motor - shaking its way around. Take a 330ml drinks can and put it on its side. Fix an electric motor over one end of the can, packing tape is good for this (but not very environmentally friendly). Attach something to the motor's spindle that unbalances the motor, the goal is to get it vibrating. Broken propellers, cogs with Blu-tak, cogs with modelling clay have all being tried. The problem with this, is turn the motor on and the junkbots rolls over onto it side and goes around in circles. A couple of fixes students have tried, adding outrigg...

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...