Day: 15 October 2018

Junior Robotics Club – All Welcome

This new club has begun this autumn term with the purchase of four Rover Robots.  As these arrive as kits, we have been busy building them – three are completed and the fourth just requires its cable connections completing.  Each Rover needs a Raspberry Pi computer which we will be able to program using Python.  We had several Raspberry Pi computers, but unfortunately these were quite old models, so we have purchased new ones for the Rovers.

The next activity club members will become involved with is installing the software onto the MicroSD cards that each Raspberry Pi uses.  We can then download some programs that control the Rovers and start to create our own programs.  Ultimately we could create programs that will control the Rovers through mazes, let the Rovers take part in races or whatever else the students decide to do.

We selected the Rovers as they are programmable using Python, which is the programming language we use for our GCSE and A Level courses.  A Level students also have the option of using these Rovers for their coursework, to demonstrate their programming skills.

The club runs each Tuesday lunchtime in Room 19.  This term we have only had up to six Year 7 students attending, so new students are welcome. As we are now ready to program the Rovers, Senior Robotics Club, for Year 9 and 10 students, will start after half term.

Finally, the four Rovers have the highly unoriginal names of Rover1 to Rover4.  So, there will be a Name-the-Rover competition after half term!