An excited group of 12 of our Year 5 and 6 pupils traveled down to The Britten Pears Foundation in Aldeburgh last week to take part in an Aim High Robotics Day, led by former primary school teacher and Robot Wars competitor, Ian Botwright.
The hands-on science and technology-based course was centred around the K’NEX construction system and involved our pupils working together in small teams to build remote control fighting robots out of a combination of K’NEX and Ian’s own customised electronics and parts.
Each team then made modifications to their robots and pitted them against each other in a series of challenges such as skittles and football, encouraging ingenuity and increasing knowledge of Design Technology and applicable scientific concepts. Year 5 pupil, Harry R said: “I loved the Robo Football as we got to compete against other teams by manoeuvring our robots to trap the ball and move through the goal posts. It was lots of fun!”
Covering a range of science and engineering concepts such as electrical circuits, batteries, friction, levers, ratio, materials, radio, and microprocessors, the event also allowed for our pupils to explore the social aspects of successful design work by learning to co-operate and contribute to a group in order to ensure team success.
This was a fantastic learning experience for all involved, further enhancing our pupils’ love of learning in an emerging technology field. We look forward to more robotics opportunities that can enhance our pupils’ skills in the future.
