In February 2017 the Ely Makers team were invited to demonstrate their Pi Wars robot to the year-two children of the Willow, Maple, Oak and Rowan classes at the Spring Meadow School in Ely.
This was to relate to the learning that the children were doing around inventions and what it meant to be an inventor.
The children and staff gathered in the studio for a short talk and afterwards they also got a chance to see and try out the Pi Wars robot in a few friendly games of Pi Noon.
We had prepared a hand-out with some notes with information about different types of engineering and about how engineers work (think/design, do/develop, test). We also brought various parts of a computer – a motherboard, a graphics card and an opened-up hard drive for the children to pass around and look at.
For the Pi Wars robot demo two of our Ely Makers team members did a show run with our two prototype robots trying to burst each others balloons. Then we did two more runs first with two boys then two girls battling each other on the robot arena.
The children roared with excitement when the robots got close to each other and when a roboteer managed to burst the balloon of the other.
At the end of the presentation the children could ask questions. Examples of questions that the children asked were how long time it took to build the robot, how a games controller could be used to control a robot, how the battery was fixed, etc.
It was so rewarding to see how the children and staff of the Spring Meadow school enjoyed the presentation and the atmosphere could not have been better. We would be more than happy to do this again in the future.
Ely Makers would like to express a big thank you to all the staff for making us feel so welcome and for organising a lovely thank you card with comments that the children had made after the event.
To Mr Shah, Thanks so much for coming into school to show us your fantastic robots. From Year 2 Oak Maple Willow Rowan
“I learnt that you can make robotics if you try and don’t give up” – Oscar
“I loved trying to pop the balloon with my robot!” – Tara-Louise
“I learned to never give up” – Sophie
“I would like to build robots when I grow up!” – Oliver
“I liked trying to pop Tara-Louise’s balloon” – Bella
“I liked looking at the hard drives” – Alice
“I thought it was amazing watching robots fighting each other” – Leo
“I wish I had a robot like that!” – Maya
“It was amazing how the robot moved” – Ianthe
“Your robots are fantastic” – Lilli
“I am going to make a big robot” – Cohen
“I liked the pointy bit on the robot” – Kayden
“I liked that it was a bit fast” – Bella
“I liked how the robots tried to pop each others balloon” – Ellis
“I really enjoyed when both of the balloons popped at the same time” – Lorenza