About Rubbish Robots: Making Robots from Rubbish
The Rubbish Robots project started with two goals: to engage local school pupils to show the latest in environmental robotics and help engineers improve their public engagement abilities.
The first goal was achieved by engaging with four local schools in Edinburgh and West Lothian with an interesting, timely and fun set of activities about how we can design and build robots in different and environmentally sustainable ways (or try to). There were two main activities, one the school pupils could design a recycled textile-based robot and then using spare and recycled textiles, create their own squishy robot and the other event was the pupils could come in and work to build a small robot companion, program it and then engage in demo with the engineers and the robotics we work with on a daily basis.
The schools work with a robotics development kit which could be used to turn normal plastic bottles into 3D printer filament that could be used to print small parts for their robots.
The second goal was to work with engineers to improve their public engagement abilities by providing them with custom training on how to do public engagement in a school environment and how to create their own activities which could then be used at different events. The engineers worked with some of the school pupils and showed off their work in the Edinburgh Science Festival to a general audience of families.
Key lessons
There were many key lessons from this project, some related to engaging with schools in general, which are often under-served or under-represented in public engagement activities. Schools that might appear to be under-served often have a large number of university projects wanting to work with them, which can be seen as a positive, but can also lead to staffing issues, activity fatigue, and difficulty finding staff to attend events with the school pupils as this takes time out a teachers day that would normally be spent teaching.
It was underestimated how, with the current staffing levels at schools and the university, key members of all teams can leave, which required us to think of contingency plans. Overall the pupils enjoyed the workshops created some fun an quirky robots and showed an interest in engineering and who engineers are.
