What:
Extracurricular activities in robotics for high school students

When:
October 2019 –
Jun 2020

Project coordinator:
Jakub
Kowalewski

Who:
Akademeia High School, Warsaw, Poland

Skriware tools used:
Skribots,
Skriware 2 3D Printer

Akademeia is a private school with dozens of extra-curricular activities to choose from. How to interest students in programming and 3D printing in such a competitive environment? Jakub Kowalewski uses our Skribots! They allow him to combine these fields with fun, creative experiences. To keep students engaged he customizes Skriware’s scenarios with his own ideas.

His course is spanning twenty 90-minute lessons and covers a variety of topics utilizing the full range of Skriware’s educational offer. It began with an introduction to 3D design, followed by classes on 3D printing. Then, the focus shifted to Skribots – cooperating with each other, following the manual and experimenting, students assembled the robots. It allowed them to learn about electronics and, thanks to Skribot Creator and the school’s 3D printer, they were able to customize robots. Kowalewski would also discuss possible applications of programming and 3D printing, and talk about subjects such as Asimov’s laws of robotics – in English, of course, as per the school’s policy.

Using Destination: Mars course, Kowalewski introduced his students to programming. They were eager to learn and quickly moved from a mobile app to Arduino programming that allowed them to program Skribots to, for example, avoid obstacles using its sensors and remember distance covered. As the classes progress students moved to solving real-life problems. At one point they were asked to program the Skribot to use its LEDs to send an SOS signal after encountering a wall, for example.

The course in Akademeia has now moved into the second term and Jakub Kowalewski is as eager as his students, looking forward to developing together with them.