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Robotics Challenge Workshop

Friday 28 September 2018

1000-1600
Event Details
Dundee & Angus College (Gardyne Campus)
Gardyne Road
Dundee
DD5 1NY

Summary

We’ve been keen to do something around robotics for a while and have now found an opportunity to work with Digital Maker CIC to bring you our free Robotics Challenge workshop. Dundee & Angus College have kindly agreed to host the event at their Gardyne campus, so we’re looking for college staff keen to exercise their engineering, programming and design skills on the 28th of September.

A few things to set out from the start:

  1. No previous engineering/programming experience required to participate!
  2. We’ll be working in teams, sign up individually or as a group of 3.
  3. You don’t need to bring anything along other than your enthusiasm and curiosity.


The workshop is based on the Pi Wars robotics competition, which has been running since 2015 and brings together over 70 teams to compete over 2 days to lift the robotic crown and become Pi War champions. What I like about this is the fact that someone using a Raspberry Pi and cheap robotics kit can create an autonomous robot for under £50. The Digital Maker CIC team are looking to host the first Scottish Pi Wars event next year, perhaps this could be your preparation to put in an entry?

On the day, we’ll have groups of 3 building a robot from scratch, programming it to tackle challenges that the Digital Maker CIC team have come up with, to see which team will triumph. It’s an excellent opportunity to learn a bit about engineering, programming and what you can develop in a day – and you don’t need to have any prior experience in any of these areas; just the enthusiasm to take part!

You have the option to sign up as a team to represent the honour of your College (though if you want to register individually, we’ll find you two others to form a team on the day). There are 24 places available at this workshop (8 teams), so please register early to avoid missing out!

Who should attend

We welcome anyone with an interest robotics, engineering, software development. No previous experience is required – only the enthusiasm to take part!

Aims

This session aims to:

  • introduce college staff to world of robotics, covering aspects of design, engineering and programming;
  • encourage cross-curricular teamwork
  • learn about developments in automation and AI
  • determine who is best robot-builder in the room.