Junkbots

A recent article in the Northampton Herald and Post " How a university is using waste as tool to inspire students " by Lawrence John discusses the Junkbots project.  " FUNNY looking robots called junkbots could be the key to encouraging more children across the county to become engineers, computer programmers or scientists. One force which is driving this idea forward is the University of Northampton. For the past few years, staff from its science and technology department have been going out to primary and secondary schools to spread the word that science is fun. By working with schools, the university hopes to show pupils a different side to computing and hopefully raise their interest in what they can achieve " Lawrence John For the whole article click here .

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...

Thank you to the students and staff at Brooke Weston School, Corby, UK for working with us on this project. Here are some of the comments made by the students. Several of the students identified some interesting features about building robots out of 'junk': "We had the [f]reedom to show the teachers what skills we have" (Student B) "interesting overall" (Student H) "...but frustrating because modifications were frequent" (Student J) "The activity was very fun and creative. We experience lots of difficulties to overcome." (Student K) "it was nice have time off timetable once in a while" (Student N) "I found that building the junk bots has made me some new friends..." (Student T) "...as we[ we]re able to put any ideas forward to put ideas forward to create our own creation" (Student V) The programming of the robots caused a differences in opinion which seemed to come down to two main factors, that th...

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...

The School of Science and Technology at the University of Northampton have been working with local schools to create robots made from junk. This is an initiative by the University to introduce environmental sustainability, engineering and computing to students and has been been funded by Northampton Enterprise Limited and east midlands development agency (emda ). This project sets out to engage pupils with a set of activities over four three-hour sessions that provides an insight into STEM subjects. The workshops will be structured in the following way: (a)Session 1: Introduction to waste management, its impact, recycling and reuse. An introduction to the idea of making robots from rubbish. (b)Two sessions involving guided exercises. · Session 2: Involves some problem-solving exercises (approx. ½ hour), then in groups investigate adding ‘junk’ with a new electrical components such as batteries and motors to use vibrations to move the robots. · Session 3: To appl...