Robot workshop in Hamburg’s library
During the summer vacation in Hamburg, the robolab of the Hamburger Bücherhallen offers various activities for children and young people to discover robots in a playful way. Our OESA scholarship holder Alex has designed a workshop based on the Dagstuhl Triangle and implemented it at robolab Hamburg.
Alex’s concept is divided into three parts: In the beginning, the children collected their prior knowledge about robots and thought together about what actually constitutes robots. In a brainstorming process, the group collected their prior knowledge and built on it. This was followed by a practical part in which the Thymio robot and its functions were explored.
For this, a parkour was designed and paths were drawn. The children learned a lot about trial and error, but also had a cheat sheet with the functions of the Thymios at hand.
At the end of the hands-on learning session, the children shared and reflected on their experiences.
In the last part of the workshop, Alex presented the children with a hypothetical scenario: The children were asked to consider what it would be like if teaching robots took over the lessons at school and human teachers only came to school occasionally.
The consensus: each scenario holds its possibilities and challenges, and a teaching robot still seems too far away to judge about concrete features (or bugs). Nevertheless, a rethinking of school and teaching took place that afternoon and we hope to see Alex and the kids tinkering in robolab again soon. We look forward to it and thank robolab for the great collaboration!
You can find more info about the project and robolab here on the Hamburger Bücherhallen homepage.
More information about the OESA scholarship can be found in the following article.