Friday 24 April 2015

Computing at School Resource: Lego Junkbot

Details of the LEGO Junkbot (combining the control of LEGO Mindstorm NXT with Junkbots) can now be found on the Computing At School (CAS) website: http://community.computingatschool.org.uk/resources/3399


The idea behind the LEGO Mindstorms Junkbots is to bring together the motors of the LEGO and use them to power the robot which is otherwise created from junk. The key aims of the project are; - To give children at a KS2 primary school level an insight into what can be achieved through the use of simple programming. - To provide a fun and engaging activity for children to be creative and design their own robots. - To use the robots and programming software to achieve basic movements of the Junkbots.
The original junkbots project combined the idea of using motors and vibrations to move the bots with limited control however the new project uses the idea of programming to add a further element of control and as such the simplicity of the self contained NXT device was decided upon as a branch of this.
Aiming the project at KS1 and KS2 gives the opportunity to introduce basic programming from a young age and demonstrate just one of the interesting possibilities that comes from it.


Developed by Hayden Tetley and Scott Turner. Hayden’s time was paid for through the Nuffield Research Placements Scheme (http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/nuffield-research-placements).





If you'd like to find out more about Computing at the University of Northampton go to: www.computing.northampton.ac.uk. All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with.

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