STEM - Bellfield Robotics In the last two weeks there have been exciting developments in the STEM field for Bellfield. We’ve been developing a new program to keep students engaged in coding and robotics in a home learning scenario – equipping them with skills for diverse and rewarding industries. In Week 1, I began investigating our school’s existing LEGO Education SPIKE Prime kits and their potential as the core for robotics and coding lessons by testing them out. Thankfully I found two brilliant helpers in Azaan and Mauhsen, who happily lent their time to exploring the robot’s potential. First, we developed a robotic dog, ‘Kiki’, that can recognise colours and respond with a variety of sounds to produce an interactive story. First Kiki was lost in the city, and then defending its home from invasion. Next we moved from a coding focus to an engineering focus by developing racing ‘hoppers’ – two legged robots that propel themselves forward on rotating joints. Azaan and Mauhsen started with basic legs that they then adapted to have multiple limbs for more consistent propulsion, added rubber tipped appendages for greater grip, and offset the rotation of the legs to provide a consistently straight trajectory. The boy’s demonstrated a keen interest that we hope to share with all students at Bellfield soon.
In the meantime, we’ve come up with a great way students can get involved from home: Coding Challenges. Each week we will be constructing robots to conquer a unique challenge such as racing around a circuit, cleaning up an accident scene, or making a robot walk upright on two legs. For students at home, you’ll be writing to code that controls the robots! We anticipate some messy but entertaining trial and error at the start, but over time your coding skills will develop and so too your ability to conquer the challenges.
If you’d like to prepare and get familiar with the coding, download the SPIKE app at: https://education.lego.com/en-us/downloads/spike-prime/software Stay tuned for further updates.