Kids show off their robot-building skills

After four weeks of hard work, learning and fun, the campers of the 2017 Barbados Junior Robotics Camp got the opportunity to display the robots that they worked so hard on during the Showcase Finals that took place at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, yesterday evening.

Camp Director, David Thorpe, explained that the campers would put their robots to the test by taking them through an obstacle course within a time-frame of three minutes and noted that the obstacle course used
yesterday evening was from a popular robotics competition in the United States.

Thorpe mentioned that in addition to building these robots, the coaches suggested that this year, the children also undertake the challenge of building robots that did not use electrical power. He revealed that these robots were made using cardboard, string and in one instance, hydraulic power.

He went on to note that roboticists had three main skills – electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and were good at computer science. He said that they tried to expose the campers to all three aspects, while ensuring that they had fun.

Meanwhile, Executive Director of the Caribbean Science Foundation (CSF), Cardinal Warde, expressed that due to the multiple requests from parents and campers, the camp had grown from one level to three. Right now, he explained: there was level 1, which focused on structures and tele-operations, level 2, which focused on electronics and autonomy and Level 2A, which focused on Programmed “Intelligence” and Shared Control.

“We wanted to go straight to Level 3, but we were not able to do so because there’s no machine shop here. These children are not able to make parts for their robots; so that’s something we have to help with and change for the future,” he said.

Warde added that Level 3 would involve a lot more programming and that he hoped the children would be able to make some of the robots on their own.