On the 12th of December we were scheduled to present a workshop towards the elementary school OBS Crooswijk located in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Together with Robeco, our main sponsor, we came up with the idea to host robotics workshops for elementary schools. We were only supposed to give a workshop to group 7, but when we got there we were asked to also give a workshop to group 8, so we were excited to give the same opportunity to another class! Their excitement however was even greater than ours!
Due to the location of the school, which was close by, we walked with all of our utilities towards the elementary school.
It only took a couple of minutes and so it was not that bad. We arrived with more then enough spare time to set everything up. The teacher gave us around an hour for the workshop which was a bit challenging, but still manageable. All of the utilities we used were: the Lego sumo robots we prepared beforehand, a presentation displayed on their monitor on which we introduced robotics on junior level alongside a quick showcasing of our current robot, a box filled with Lego Mindstorms and lastly our own roll-up banner.
The workshop started off with a small presentation, where we talked about who we are, what we do, what robotics is and lastly a simulation and the highlights of our robots at the World Championship in Bordeaux in 2023, then we talked about how Lego Sumo Robots work and what we have planned for them. After the presentation we let their creativity loose by tasking them with building constructions for their own Sumo Robot which we further displayed by setting up a mini sumo robot competition to see which team’s creative solution would win. We emphasized on the creative part to make sure everyone had their own unique design, the kids impressed us with how creative they were, with their designs made in only a couple of minutes!
While they were building their unique designs each and everyone of us present gave those that were in a pinch a helping hand. When the time was up everyone handed in their robots from which we chose who would play against who. After a couple of games we had the finals in which all of the winning robots played against each other. The winning team from group 7 was coincidentally also the team with the most unique design! Before we left we made sure to ask everyone if they had a great time and if they wanted to continue doing this later on. The most amazing thing was the fact that the majority of the class including the teachers thought it was fun and very informative!
All in all it was a fun and successful day! We are glad to have been given this opportunity by the school as they must have other things to do as well. The workshops were finished around 2.30 PM, but before we were truly done we had to visit the neighbouring elementary school to ask further about giving them a workshop as well. As a result we were given the teachers contact information. From this point on we walked back towards our own school to put all of our utilities away, which also concluded our day.
