Engineering Week: Building Robotic Arms in Secondary Science

Written by: Maria Iriarte

Engineering Week came back to Olive Tree for a second week, with pupils exploring the importance of robots in our daily life. They set a SWOT analysis reflecting on the pros and cons of robots and discussed different topics such as- the human characteristics that a robot could never have.

Later in the week, pupils were provided with a bag including daily materials and they used the materials to design and build a working Robot Arm. The robot arm needed to be at least 0.5 metres in length and be able to pick up an empty Styrofoam cup. Students drew sketches prior to construction so that the design process could be used again.

The resulting robot arms were then tested to see if they could really function.

The aim of Engineering was to not only have students think deeply about the ethics around progress – in this case specifically robots, but also to learn about how engineers think when designing and building.

To see more pictures from Engineering Week – head over to our Facebook page for the full album!