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  • Author Author: fmilburn
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Robot Summer Camp 2021

fmilburn

This is the 5th year I have held Robot Summer Camp for my grandchildren and there were 2 full-time campers and 1 part-time.  They don't really camp, but one has to sleep on the couch :-). 

 

The purpose of Robot Summer Camp is to have some fun and give the kids some extra exposure to science, making stuff, and the outdoors.  We go for a walk every day, read for at least 30 minutes, build something, and do things with science or electronics/programming.  This year in the more technical categories we:

 

  • Made Lego WeDo 2.0 Robots
  • Programmed in Scratch
  • Looked through the microscope at leaves and flowers
  • "Invented" a new part for Marble Run

 

My older granddaughter who has not expressed much interest in electronics or robots in the past was really interested in Lego WeDo and Scratch this year.  Great!  My grandson who has always had an interest in robots and programming has become obsessed with Nintendo.  That seems to happen to all of them.  There was an unfortunate accident which I believe to be child-related with the Raspberry Pi Camera I hooked up to my microscope so that it became non-working which was a disappointment.  But we were still able to look through the eyepieces.  The leaves we picked up were particularly interesting to me.  Not so much the kids :-).

 

I asked my daughter to have the two older kids think of something they wanted to build several days before the camp, but they showed up without any ideas.  Should have handled that myself :-).  However, the youngest child and I came up with an enhancement for a marble game that the kids like to play with when they come to visit.

 

Marble Run has various plastic parts that can be put together in a kind of marble maze.  When building a structure it seems like there are never enough columns as pointed out by the youngest child.  So we 3D printed some more columns.  If you aren't familiar with Super Marble Run, here is a short 20-second video that shows an abbreviated marble setup.

 

 

The kids are gone now so there is only Bender for companionship as seen in the video.  The 3D modeling was done in Fusion360 and is fully parametric so that tolerances can be tweaked and different length columns printed.  They say you can't put a decagon peg into a round hole but that is exactly what the makers of Super Marble Run did.

image

Somewhat to my surprise, the first print came out and worked just fine.  The shape of the decagon seems to allow a snug fit without the tolerance problems that can arise when trying to print a rounded shape for a hole.  I'll have to remember that.  Another thought was that we could further enhance the game by adding LEDs that blink when a marble passes, a timer, ways to release multiple marbles, etc.

 

Anyway, it was a successful Robot Summer Camp.  I have more luck when using educational products like Scratch and Lego WeDo than developing my own teaching materials.  The kids like to build stuff - I need to have more prepared in that regard.  And once again my appreciation for teachers that somehow manage classrooms full of kids has grown.

  • in reply to fmilburn

    I do plan on posting on the robot development as it gets further along.

     

    With my own kids I relied on 'teachable moments' as a way to impart lessons and share ideals.  The more I tried to teach, the less they would listen.  Finding the right moments to talk about issues seemed to work the best for us. But like you mentioned, sharing interests and listening to their interests is a good way to keep the lines on communications open.  There too, each child is different, one it was all about plays and acting, another it was music and for yet another it was strategy and role playing games.

     

    So far with my grandkids it is characters in videos or video games, like My Little Pony, Paw Patrol or Hatchimals, or Mario and Smash Brothers.  Although they both love to see and play with Grandma's robots and other toys and go on backyard adventures checking out the birds/butterflies/insects in our nature spaces.

     

    I bought my grandson the Marble Run kit also.  Maybe we should repeat your path and try to develop add-ons to the set to keep the interest going.

  • in reply to genebren

    Hi Gene and thanks!  I hope you post more on the robots you are making. We never really know what thing we do or say will influence them.  But I think sharing our interests and listening to their interests is the most important thing.  Sometimes I try too hard to “teach” them. Maybe playing a marble game and making a little plastic column will lead her to become an architect or structural engineer.  More likely she will choose some other path but that will be her choice :-)

  • I really enjoy your Robot Summer Camp reports.  I think that helping your grandchildren to become more interested in nature and science is a noble effort.  I try to do the same with my grandchildren.  We have introduced our grandchildren to bird watching and now our granddaughter can identify most of the birds that come to our feeders (more than ten species).  We are also working on robots for the two of them.  The robots are going to have MP3 players for customizable sound effects and small graphic RGB LCDs to display some GIF files to provide the robots with individual personalities (Smash Brothers and Undertale characters).  I am working with them to define the mobile base now and it looks like we are going in the direction of a dual motor tractor/tank drive mechanism.  It is fun to see them get enthusiastic about the process and to have them share ideas about what we could and should do.

     

    Keep up the good work and enjoy this precious time with your grandchildren!