This week, Year 5 were very lucky to be invited to take part in an exciting STEM workshop all about robotics.
We met with the Subnautics Robotics Team from St Marylebone, who were absolutely brilliant. They began by introducing themselves and explaining the amazing work they do within their team. Each year, they design and build robots to compete against other teams, testing which designs perform the best. As well as being fantastic engineers, they are also passionate advocates for ocean wildlife and campaigners for plastic free oceans. The team even brought along some impressive posters showing the robots they have built.
Our challenge was to design and create prototypes out of LEGO for our own robots with specific functions. For example, some of us built robots that could stack blocks into a tower, while others designed robots to make a bed or even walk a dog. The dog walking team cleverly decided to market their robot towards older people and came up with a unique selling point to match.
Throughout the session, we used prompt cards to think carefully about our designs:
• Would our robot be controlled by a human or automatic?
• How would it detect objects?
• What safety features might it need?
We then created mind maps to summarise our designs, explaining our choices and how each part of the robot would function, such as “a sensor that detects obstacles”. Finally, we presented our ideas to the group and shared what we had learned.
We had such a brilliant time and learned so much about how robotics combines creativity, problem solving and science. A huge thank you to the Subnautics Robotics Team from St. Marylebone and Marylebone Library for hosting us, and of course to the parents who came along to support us. We hope you had as much fun as we did!
If you could build your own robot for any purpose, what would it do and how would it help people?
Wow! It looks like lots of fun, I hope you enjoyed it.
That was so fun ! I wish we could do it again!!!!!!!!
THIS WAS SO FUN!!!!!! It was very educational and if I were to build a robot, it would be for a submarine driver. It would help by making sure the submarine is safe.
This was so fun! I really hope we can do something like this again. My favourite part was definitely making our robot out of Lego, even if it broke twice.
I would build a robot that does cooking so that we can all rest.
I love Lego and I think a good robot would do my homework for me!
I really enjoyed this.
It was amazing. I learnt so many things when building a robot and now I am ready to become the world’s greatest technician!! My robot would be called speedup and it would do my homework so well I would be able to get a+ on sats !!
This was so fun! I really enjoyed designing a robot out of Lego. If I could design and make my own robot I would program my robot to do all sorts of cleaning, including hoovering, mopping, organising and lots more.
I would make a robot for doing my homework and to make smoothies for me and it would help people by them not having to do stuff and just chill.
It would lift objects and give them to you with a controller.
My robot would lift objects and give them to me and it would also do my homework and give me money!
I would build a robot that can help you to make rubiks cubes and build really cool models of lego! Mabye even a giant house of lego!!!
My robot would be one that can swim as if a robot could go under the water it would help people by finding shiprecks and treasure. The trip was amazing thanks! my robot would be waterprof.
I loved making lego. Our team made a mixing machine.
If I were to make a robot ,the purpose of it would be a swimming robot that would be a life guard in a public swimming pool.It would be waterproof so it doesn’t get damaged in the water.It would have a never ending battery to make sure it doesn’t stop working when it is saving someone.
I really enjoyed our trip to the library and I really hope we’ll be able to do it again. If I could build any robot with any purpose I would create a sort of vacuum that sucks up carbon dioxide and transforms it into oxygen as well as being able to clean the house.
I enjoyed the workshop so much. The part I loved the most is showing it to everyone and talk about we done.