Last year I started a robotics class at P.S. 230 through New York Cares.  I’d been volunteering on a cooking project with third graders there for a few months worth of Saturdays.  I ran into the principal one day and mentioned to her that I teach electrical engineering at P.S. 24 every once every week and hey, why not do something at P.S. 230 too?  The school has Lego kits, but they were old RCX kits that didn’t work so well, especially with the software interface.  We pushed forward anyway and everyone had a good time.  They made robotic flower pots and had a wiffle ball competition.  I mentioned the robotics class to the principal of P.S. 24 — if both schools had problem-free robotics kits, we could have competitions.  This year we have a class at both schools.

The kids built music robots for the first gathering, more of an art show than a competition.  We were rushed for time, but most of the kids ended up with a robot.  We used random things from my kitchen and bookshelf to mix in for sounds.  There are photos and videos for most of the robots here.  My personal favorite was the robot that danced the worm and the one that chimed on steel bolts.  The kids were enjoying it, but I could tell some wanted something more energetic.

The kids eyes lit up when I told them about our next project, balloon popping robots.  I tried not to mention it to anyone at the school because I didn’t want them to say no.  The librarian thought needles might be too dangerous because they’re small and will get lost all over the classroom, so we went with nails.  Nails alone aren’t enough to pop a balloon, so we sharpened them with a dremel.  No one employed by the school mentioned a problem with it after seeing the razor toothed robots the kids designed.

The competition went so-so.  Time constraints were a problem again, so no one got a chance to give their robots a good test.  On top of that, the day of the competition I bought balloons that were tougher to pop than the balloons everyone used for testing, but we had enough easy-to-pop water balloons for a more enjoyable second round.  The kids were super excited when all the robots were in the pen trying to pop balloons.

All the New York Cares volunteers and my friends at Daylife were a huge help.  None of this would have been possible without them.  Building robots with Legos isn’t easy as it sounds.  It takes a lot of patience and self-control to work with some of the kids.  We have more time and new ideas, so maybe the next go around will be closer to how I envisioned it.