Robotics Workshop for Elementary Students
About 50 fourth- to sixth-grade students at a public elementary school went from their first look at a LEGO EV3 kit to programming robots for a sumobot tournament in a single workshop, organized with a high school robotics club in two weeks.
Andres Bonifacio Elementary School (ABES), a local public school building up its STEM program, asked for an introduction to robotics for its students. With my high school’s robotics club, I gathered kits and volunteers and organized a workshop in two weeks for about 50 students from fourth to sixth grade.
To let the students focus on programming, we preassembled all 11 LEGO EV3 kits and made a sumobot arena from electrical tape on the back of a tarpaulin. I led the session in front of a packed AV room: first a tour of the kit’s motors, sensors, and parts, then the drag-and-drop programming blocks for motor control, sensor inputs, and conditional logic. Students worked in tables of three to six, each with a mentor to answer questions.
The workshop ended with a sumobot tournament that I hosted. Students programmed their robots on their own and were free to modify them however they wanted. This workshop is part of a broader thread of outreach and teaching, including a mechanical-linkages class for MIT’s ESP Splash program and a robotics workshop-competition at my high school.