KINDERBOT

Building Connections through Robotics

ISB students in the Design Robotics class collaborated with young clients to design and build Kinderbots, creating meaningful connections and designing robots that could entertain and delight young children.

The second semester unit for the inaugural Robotics Class at ISB was entitled “Kinderbots, Designing for Play.”

Grade 9 and 10 Students were tasked with designing and building a unique robot that could entertain a young child.

As part of our research, the four classes travelled to the Vitra Design Museum (in Weil am Rhein), in order to see their exhibition entitled “Hello Robot.” This exhibit featured historical robots from TV and movies such as Wall-E and R2D2, but also real-life robots such as Spot made by Boston Dynamics.

In February, we took a short trip to our Junior School campus to meet with EC2 and Grade 1 students. All Grade 9 and 10 creators were then paired with one or two Junior School students who could serve as our clients. We asked them questions about their interests and tried to draw out ideas from them about what would make for a great robot. Using their ideas, we created sketches that were then delivered to them to get a feel for what type of robot we were creating for them.

In March, we began constructing the robots based on our design. As this was a unique build, it was slow going at first. Eventually, the robots started to take shape, and by April most students had something at least capable of motion. At this stage, the EC2 students came up to the Senior School for a visit to Robostadt. This got them excited about the creation, and gave us an opportunity to troubleshoot parts of our robot that needed the most work.

On May 11 we will showcase our completed robots to peers at the Reinach Robot Reveal on the Senior School campus. May 16th will be the main event, which is Kinder Robotag. All robotics students and creations will go to Junior School campus for an afternoon of Robotic Awesomeness.