This weekend, I once again mentored the robotics activity at the Coder Dojo Kingston University bringing along our fleet of 10 robots for children learning and experimenting with MicroPython.

It was a great session, and I had the opportunity to work with some talented young coders.

We saw a wide range of progress during the session. Some children with very little coding experience created LED animations to bring their robots to life, learning about list manipulation and GPIO pins along the way. Others developed successful line-following code, exploring proportional control, while several tested obstacle-avoiding robots in the test area, experimenting with control strategies and parameters through trial and error.

One ninja (CoderDojo student) combined LED animations with distance sensors to create a “wince” behaviour when the robot got too close to an obstacle.

One of the things I enjoy most about teaching robotics is how tangible the results are. A small change in code immediately changes the behaviour of a real robot, making experimentation and learning highly rewarding.

You can see a tear-down of one of these robots here: