I can’t believe we are nearly at the end of another school year and one which has yet again been packed full of engineering at Rode Heath. I have decided this month to let our pupils take a turn at writing – after all, good communication skills are essential if engineers wish to share their ideas with a wider audience.
To set the scene: the Year 5s are currently studying the topic of Space in science and were investigating robotic arms. One of our parents, Mr Northwood, happened to work in robotics and offered to come in to talk about his job.
Over to Liliana and Alfie . . .
“First, we had a task to balance one book or more on the back of our hands to show if there was friction. At this point, we all felt excited and ready to learn more. To help out in space, scientists have used robotic arms for many years. Space doesn’t just include science and engineering it also includes maths and especially biomimicry, which is the design and production of materials, structures and systems that are modelled on biological entities and processes.
Our next challenge was to make robotic arms out of lollipop sticks, plastic cups and sponges. Some groups were very successful as they managed to pick up a ping pong ball multiple times. Did you know the closest planets to Earth are Venus and Mars?
Then a robot expert called Mr Northwood came in. He works for Peak Analysis and Automation Ltd UK – (PAA) – which provides state-of-the-art automation technology to the pharmaceutical and chemical industries.
He told us some of the names of different robots such as: 6 axis robot, scara robot, anthropomorphic robot, tripod robot and S-LAB robot. The anthropomorphic robot acts like a human and basically does everything the same. Did you know that the tripod robot is the fastest robot in the world? Also the word ‘robota’ comes from the Czech language meaning forced labour. We then received a microtiter plate each, which is a tub of lots of little holes that you put chemicals in and it makes a new medicine. The chemicals mimic a reaction that takes place inside the body and the medicine will stop it. If it does, the medicine will work on humans, if not you come up with a different medicine and retest. This is called Life Science and it can cost approximately £1,000,000,000 to make a new medicine.
We then got to see a robot grabber in action. This robot was very delicate and efficient. One day there might even be a robot which does your homework (not approved by us and the teachers). Next we saw robots such as: a jellyfish robot, a crab robot, a butterfly robot, a kangaroo robot, a gymnast robot and a bat robot.
Afterwards, we watched some videos about some robots falling over. We were laughing our heads off!”
Think Like An Engineer 