28x x omnes - Robotic Workshops for Children
The idea of collaboration
omnes is a non-profit organisation in Kilkis which helps foreigners in education, housing and bureaucracy. As an immigrant in Kilkis, omnes also helped me in Greek learning.
During my Greek lessons at omnes, I found some children were also doing lessons. I later discussed with Sokratis to see if we can collaborate with omnes, and offer our expertise to those children. Because quality education shapes a better life for children, maybe we can provide robotic education for them.
Luckily, Sokratis immediately agreed with my idea, and Charoula, the coordinator of omnes also said yes to the collaboration. So we had two workshops with the children on April 19. The video below recorded their learning in our workshops.
What have children learned?
Children in our workshops learned 5 concepts of robotics:
Robots in everyday life: Children learn best from the real world. In order to let them know the importance of robotics in modern life, Sokratis introduced a variety of robots that humans are using.
Child-friendly techs: Robotics can be hard for beginners. So we selected age-appropriate materials, BBC micro:bit and ARDUINO, for them to explore. By exploring, the children get to know that these materials can be programmed and perform certain tasks.
Coding: The children learned coding is the way that humans communicate with computers. By block coding, the children learned a few principles of coding.
Electronics: Electronics is a key part of designing and manufacturing robots. The older children experienced how to assemble an ARDUINO controller board and make it work.
Sensor basics: Robots receive information in their environment and adjust their action accordingly. The theory behind it is called Sensor. In our workshops, the older children learned the sensor basics with LED lights.
Our reflection
Through the workshops, we found the children learned technology and robotics better than we expected. They have so much potential for learning robotics.
Although robotics isn't a school subject yet, it can develop children's creativity and computational thinking. Given the fact that most children don't do robotics at school, we were really happy to provide the opportunity for these children.
We hope the workshops plants a seed in their young minds and let them grow 21st-century skills in the future. 🦾🌱
What are the workshops about?
We designed one session for children aged 6-10 and another session for children aged 11-16. Each session lasted for 50 minutes. To help children better understand robotics, we put more visual aids in our slides.
During the two workshops, Sokratis introduced the basic concepts of robotics and gave them child-aimed materials to explore, then challenged their minds with coding and electronics.
Plus, we hope they can keep motivated and carry on with their learning after the workshops. So we gave them a worksheet with some online materials to do at home.
[ If you're interested in our robotic courses, please check out our services ]
Robotics for children aged 6 and above
Coding with BBC micro:bit
Robotics for beginners
(or children aged 12 and above)
ARDUINO projects
