Interactive Robotics for Kids and Teenagers Seminar. Skoobot "tiny" Robots

This Saturday, we host a robotics session geared towards kids from pre-school to high school. Skoobot is our robot platform we will be using. We will begin with a 'breakerspace' where kids discover what common items are made of -they open up gadgets to see what is inside, how everything is assembled, and maybe answer the question as to why?

About the Skoobot seminar (hands-on):

Come meet Skoobot and the maker, Bill Weiler, to see what YOU can do with a Skoobot, tiny robots. Find out what you can do with a robot that's about the size of a quarter ... well, maybe more than one robot since they're so small!

Skoobot - tiny, cute, 1" wireless robot for hacking and Edtech. Android and Raspberry Pi apps available. Open source software on Github. Online and in-person workshops for programming Skoobot coming. Get your swarm on!

From the engineer: Why did I make it?
Skoobot is fun to play with and suits my needs as a hacker toy. It is also great for games and swarms of multiple Skoobots. The idea for Skoobot came from watching kids at an ADHD camp interact around a game of fighting spinning tops. Older kids were involved and engaged with the younger ones. They chatted freely about the tops and the games. I realized I could do the same, maybe better, with something more sophisticated and focused, perhaps involving ideas from education and ADHD research. When I left my last company, I decided to use my engineering skills to help these kids. From this, Skoobot was born.

I gave Skoobot a microphone and a processor powerful enough to handle the math needed for spoken word recognition. I gave it a buzzer to create meaningful feedback to the user. Once the children are drawn in by the cuteness and novelty, I direct them towards a cooperative game, with each child taking a turn. The game could be to solve a maze, or to help the robots communicate with a beep-based language. The cooperative game will be optimized for fun and social learning. The projected schedule is to have a prototype game for testing within a month after the campaign ends, then iterate with students and have a production-level game in six months.

Every Skoobot includes a companion board for programming and charging the Skoobot.

USB charging of Skoobot
UART or Arduino Mode
J-Link mode (C firmware

Skoobot website:
https://www.william-weiler-engineering.com/

In Action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82o1Af3qcmU&t=3s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPsAfnanbgs&t=2s

Order Skoobot:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/william-weiler-engineering/skoobot

Skoobot development blog - Google+:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BillWeilerAll