Guide: Starting an After School Robotics Club
Interested in starting your own after school robotics club? Here’s our quick start guide to how we approach it!
Step 1: Gauging Interest and Goal Setting
The first step to any successful project is finding something to work towards. Find out what your students are interested in! This could be anything from battle bots, micro mouse, 3D printing and so much more!
Generally, we like to use the annual RoboRave competition as a generic starting goal as there are a variety of challenges for students to work towards. Find more info here. Otherwise, researching robotics competitions or challenges in your area can be a great starting point!
Step 2: Planning the First “Sprint”
After school robotics clubs usually run weekly one day a week, which leaves limited time for actual crafting and troubleshooting. It’s usually good practice to work with students to plan what they want to achieve for the first term and what a reasonable amount of time and effort that will require.
For example, for students wanting to enter the RoboRave Sumo competition, I usually push students to have a finalized chassis and offensive/defensive design and be working towards a prototype 3D design by the end of the first term.
A rough week by week goal guide for term 1 could look like this:
Week 1: No club
Week 2: Brainstorming and Goal setting
Meet and talk to students about their interests and goals.
Introduce them to local competitions and challenges that suit their interests.
Brainstorm how challenges could be solved, both idealistically and realistically.
Week 3: Rough designs and Research
Go through the “Engineering Design Process” and draft designs/ideas on paper.
Start to encourage students to design solutions - what will their robot look like? Will it use something like a Micromelon Rover as a “base” for their design? What will they need to learn to achieve this? etc.
Talk to them about realistic design goals. Encourage students to play to their strengths and figure out where support can be added.
Research!
Week 4: Prototyping
Allow students to prototype designs with Lego, cardboard, Arduino or whatever resources are available.
Start to think about translating these prototypes to digital designs, such as CAD.
Figure out what students will need, eg electronic parts, special equipment, etc. Order parts early!
Week 5: Rudimentary Digital Designs
Teach students a 3D design suite of choice. Some free options are TinkerCAD and Onshape.
If the school has access to 3D printers, encourage students to use them as a way to build their custom robots.
Go through the requirements and tips for 3D printing.
If manufacturing or otherwise creating robots, go through the process and ensure all students have a general idea of where they are headed. It’s okay to not have anything completely finalized!
Week 6: Goal check in
Check in with the students mid way through the term about where they are up to - this can be as formal or informal as you like.
See if any students wish to learn specific things for later in the year, eg breadboarding electronics.
Generally allow for more testing / creating.
Week 7: Testing and Making
By this point in the term, students are usually eager to get on with whatever they are creating.
Support them where it is needed.
Week 8: Testing of Designed Parts
If any parts have been printed / manufactured, do lots of testing to make sure they’re working as intended. If not, support students with design changes and ideas. Mistakes are part of the learning!
Week 9: Continue Creating
Coming to the end of the term, check in with students to see if they plan to continue with their robot over the holidays and how you can support that.
Order any parts needed for next term.
Week 10: No club
This is an incredibly idealistic week by week goal, usually students take an entire term to prototype and semi finalize their ideas, and that’s totally okay! It’s about fun and learning first and foremost so don’t be disheartened if you haven’t got a bunch of perfect robots by the end of a single term.
Step 3: Use Resources!
A common concern we hear from teachers is the lack of use special digital tech machines and resources get. This could be anything from 3D printers, laser cutters, electronic kits or fancy materials. Seeing what your school has available and learning how to use them is a great way to integrate them into the robotics club. Design fun projects to get students involved with tech they might otherwise never get to use! It’s a great way to build both you and your student’s skill sets.
Learning about different tech and running different design challenges is a great way to fill the weeks if you aren’t working towards a specific challenge or competition. There’s a million new things to learn in 3D printing alone!
Step 4: Get Involved and Have Fun
There’s nothing better than a passionate teacher who is just as excited about the learning as the students are. I personally love to update my classes on the projects I’ve been working on as a way to inspire them and generally get involved. Build your own robot alongside them and participate in the challenges! It will make a world of difference to both your and your student’s learning.
Wrap Up
At the end of the day, there’s no one way to run an after school club, it’s important to make it your own. Figure out what you and your students wish to work towards, do some rough goal planning and use all the available resources. It may not run 100% smoothly and according to plan, but that is just the way robotics usually goes.
I look forward to seeing your robots in the field!
