Session 1:
As with all Noughty Wasters sessions, we began by sitting in a circle and introducing ourselves and sharing our interests. To get everyone’s ideas flowing, we invited the children to reflect on what they already knew about robots:

Next, we gathered around the table with the various materials Adam had brought in. We talked about the possibilities for how the three sessions could unfold and began brainstorming different directions for the robot:

Jack, the apprentice builder, took on the role of team lead for the group tasked with designing and building the robot’s control board:

Adam gathered a team whose responsibility was to work on the robot itself. We began by demonstrating a hand-crank generator connected to various parts of the robot. By generating electricity through physical effort and connecting the generator to different parts of the bot, participants were able to make various elements of the robot move:

Toward the end of session 1, the two design teams came together to reflect on what had been achieved and to review how the project was tracking:

Other experiments included Vaan, one of the participants, testing the weight-bearing capacity of the claw:

After the first session, Adam decided to do some additional preparation at home in order to lower the barrier to successful outcomes. Soldering had proved to be a hindrance to progress, so he pre-soldered the trickier components in advance:

Based on the children’s feedback, Adam also prototyped a control board using a Brainbox kit and a hacked computer mouse. An obsolete iPhone was mounted on the control board and linked to another phone mounted on the robot, providing a live video feed from the robot:

Below is a short video compilation of highlights from the session, filmed by Ann Langis:

Session 2:
Our second session began with Adam introducing some of the experiments he had completed at home:

Noah, Max, and other participants busied themselves deconstructing e-waste to recover useful components that could be reused in the robot, such as switches and motors:

Vaan set up a control station for the robot on a table:

At this stage, the robot was still tethered to the control station with wires. To move the electric motors in the robot’s arm, Vaan had to generate electricity manually by spinning a hand-crank generator:

The participants devised a challenge in which they would remotely operate the robot from a control station in the makerspace, while the robot moved through the ReUse Store, attempting to “sell” a segment of pool noodle:

The first potential customer they encountered was impressed by the robot but was not interested in purchasing the pool noodle:

The second potential customer showed interest, but unfortunately the robot operator drove the robot into the customer’s arm.

With that, we returned to the makerspace to reflect on what we had done in this session and to discuss our ambitions for the third and final session:

Below is a short video compilation of highlights from the session, filmed by Ann Langis:

Session 3:
The participants were adamant that they wanted to make the robot wireless. Adam had found a box of RC cars at Waiōrea CRC, which we decided could become donor parts. Participants got to work taking the cars apart and recovering their RC receivers and motor controllers:

Noah parked himself at the soldering station and set to work adapting the RC receivers and motor controllers for the robot:

Toward the end of the session, we had most of the robot’s functions operating completely wirelessly:

We concluded the session with a quick game of robot karaoke:

The robot still needs one final session to put everything back together and get it fully working. TBC!