"ROV In A Box" A Big Hit at 4-H Chicken-que

The Two Rock 4-H Club Primary SET Robotics group participated in the annual 4-H Chicken-que in Santa Rosa, CA. The ROV-in-a-Box Project Kit, created by Nventivity, was a big hit as the 4-H kids were enthusiastic to explain how ROV's work and show off their own ROV projects. We were able to showcase all our recent activites, including the Hexbugs, Tamiya Mechanical Walkers, Scribbler Robot (that was misbehaving) and ROV's. The merits of 4-H were prevalent as the the kids did all the interaction with the public and were enthusiastic to share their knowledge of robotics.

Meeting #2

We had another great meeting yesterday for the Two Rock 4-H Club Primary SET Robotics Project. Our meeting was all about motion – how robots move and how we use things like motors, gears, axels and linkages to make motion in mechanical things. To illustrate this concept for our kids, we all got Tamiya Robocraft Series robot animals (dogs, pigs, tigers, rabbits and kangaroos).

The mechanical walkers are great little robot kits that have many, many, small parts but are all similar in construction. Kudos to the brave parents that opted to build their kits from scratch – this was a big feat to start on the end of a Sunday but we all finished.

Meeting #1

On Sunday Dec 20, we had a great first meeting with the Two Rock 4-H Club Primary SET members. We started off the meeting by talking about what robots are, what they do and some of the activities we will do in our project such as building our own “bug bots” and underwater “Sea Perch” ROV’s.
Next, we were unwrapping our Hexbugs and seeing what these little robots can do, how they bump into each other and how the kids could trap them in various mazes. We finished the meeting by building our very own “bug bots”, all from scrap pieces of old pager parts, wire and a pill box. The battle between the “Bug Bots” and the Hexbugs moved to the floor and we finished the day. Pictures and videos of our meeting are below.