Running My 2nd Workshop – Jan

Running My 2nd Workshop – Jan

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The Micro:Bot Workshop!

Saturday 13th Jan 2018 – My second opportunity to mentor for the Coderdojo Ham Micro:bit workshop at Kingston University.

As usual, I was looking forward to being involved with the Dojo.  Although it was a bit of a change from the last experience – because Ben & Val weren’t able to be there to back me up.  (Thanks Ben & Val for making me feel brave enough to go ahead with the workshop).  Luckily I was able to recruit a couple of helpers.

The workshop involved transforming a cardboard box to make a robot & then to code it with a Micro:bit using Javascript block editor.  Nine kids attended the workshop, aged from around 7 to 13 years old.  I was really happy that a good balance of girls & boys attended.

The making part of the activity involved assembling and wiring different components  and then attaching them to the cardboard base of the robot.  Most of the components came from a kit supplied by Tech Will Save Us.

 As you can imagine, there was loads of prep to do before the workshop including an instruction sheet; I practiced all the wiring & assembly several times at home. This helped me to tackle many of the problems that popped up on the actual day.  When making the robot I discovered that there were a few extra materials that were needed.  For example, the screws (to attach the wheels to the 360 servo) that came with the kits were a bit too long and it was almost impossible to attach the wheels to the servos without them wobbling.  To solve the problem of the loose / wobbly wheels, I gave out some washers – this helped the other kids to tightly  attach the wheels to their bot.

Other tricky bits and areas that needed a bit of trouble shooting were:

• Opening & closing the stiff Wagos;
• Attaching the jumper wires correctly;
• Getting the black wire from the battery pack to stay connected to jumper wire
• Why aren’t my wheels turning?…….

 

 

 

 

 

Thankfully, after a bit of trouble shooting, all the kids managed to make their bot & successfully coded it to perform some zany movements.

Well done everyone!

More pictures of the event here!