Society of Robots - Robot Forum
General Misc => Misc => Topic started by: hazzer123 on July 24, 2007, 02:56:56 PM
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I am seriously thinking about running a Micromouse club with my physics teacher for 13 and 14 year olds at my school.
I know that the Micromouse UK competition has events with mazes that are solvable using left wall followers so this is what i will be building with the other students. Are there any official or recommended kits that i could supply them with? They would need to be pretty challenging to build and also educational, teaching them the basic principles of electronic components and maybe microcontrollers.
Anyone have any advice or experience coaching younger pupils robotic related things?
Thank you
Harry
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There is no doubt in my mind that you could do it
Erm, I would actually suggest making some bases yourself for the robots. There are some really cheap gearboxes in rapid (?1.70). The sensors etc etc etc are also top notch there. I just think that once you've made one robot, it's so much more easy to make another....and another. And at least it won't cost you a bomb.
I think a problem would be that many people may not be interested in doing such a thing (well, at least not in MY school back in the day) but maybe yours is a lot more technology based. Also, you have to be mindful that you yourself have got a robot, but it is not yet a functioning micromouse. These things require a lot of time and effort (I tried myself, and just thought meh and gave up) so..........yeah.........i'm not saying that you shouldn't do the club, but from my experience, if you have trouble, then what are like, 99% of the other people in your school going to say about it? I guess stuff has to be kept as simple as possible.
I didn't even touch programming until I reached university, because nobody ever pointed me to it or showed me how 'easy' it could be. Again, this seems to not be the case with the environment you are in. I however, know for a fact that ICT in my 6th form still sucks to the nth degree.
Pretty much everyone at my 6th form loved Media and English. everything was pushed towards these subjects. There were only 2 people doing A level physics, and there was no electronics option.
See, Electronics is DEAD in UK schools. You can help make it cool again in your school.
I wish I knew what micromouse was when I was your age lol. I also didn't really have determination to make use of my talents either.
Definitely go for it and good luck man.
Oh, and I guess I may talk to you on msn about it some time also.
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Try this:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=DGUS,DGUS:2006-11,DGUS:en&q=micromouse+robot+kit
And this:
http://www.active-robots.com/products/robots/maze-solving.shtml
But in budget you cant beat my $50 robot ;)