Course Outline
Level
For beginners up for a challenge No specific skills required, but any programming skills would be put to good use.
Suitable For
Adults and Teenagers
Description
Five days of robotic activities. Build a remote-controlled robot powered by a Raspberry Pi computer. Then make the robot drive itself!
Detail
Python Programming Essentials
We will take a quick overview of the programming concepts we will need for the course.
Anatomy of a Robot
We will examine a robot like the one you will build to understand the component parts.
Working with the Raspberry Pi
This small, cheap computer will be the brains of the robot. You will turn it on and explore its capabilities.
Working with controller boards
You will attach a controller board to the Pi and use Python code to control motors, sensors and lights.
Adding a remote control
You will learn how to connect and code a remote control and write more code to make the robot respond to user commands.
Building the body
You will take a look at the physical principles, design the robot and assemble it. The robot will be cut from plywood to your design specification.
Coding
You will code the robot to respond to commands, including moving forward, backwards, turning, spinning and stopping. Students will be encouraged to use a computational problem solving approach.
Line following
You will attach a line-following sensor and develop some code and algorithms to guide the robot along the line.
Obstacle avoidance
You will attach an ultrasonics sensor and develop some code and algorithms to help the robot navigate around the room without human intervention!
Advanced Activities
Choose from - Robotic vision: You will attach a camera and develop some code to analyse what the robot sees, making it detect objects and people. - Voice control: You will use voice control to issue spoken commands to the robot. - Your own project: You will design and implement your own robotic challenge.
Tweaking, testing and optimisation
You will fine-tune and test the robot.
Competitions
You will compete against other student's robots in a range of different challenges!
Duration
25 hours (usually over 5 days)
Price
Prices depend on location. See individual dates for details.
Skills you will pick up in the course
Key skill categories
- Robotics
- Python programming
- Electronics
- Engineering
- Problem solving
- Algorithms
On successful completion of this course, students will be able to
- Build a simple remote controlled robot.
- Describe the physical design principles for a wheeled robot.
- Add and program light sensors for robot navigation.
- Add and program ultrasonic sensors for robot navigation.
- Add and program a camera for robotic vision.
- Program a robot for voice control.
- Analyse computational problems using modelling techniques.
- Breakdown complex computational problems into manageable tasks.
- Write Python code to implement robotic behaviours.
Dates
Note that the course content may vary slightly from location to location. Please check the external link the exact course content.