Session Four Gallery Slideshow

Session Four - Saturday 14th January 2012

Thirty of our Emerging Scholars headed to South Kensington and one of the elite universities in Europe for a Robotics and Engineering workshop and a competition for the best team of Emerging Scholars.

We met up in the Reach Out Lab (ROL) of Imperial College’s Skempton Building. ROL was part funded by the noted academic Robert Winston and has been specially designed and purpose built for younger students and school groups. It provides plenty of space for demonstrations, lab work on benches and plenty of floor space for testing robots.

Neil from Exscitec led the opening presentation and we learned, through discussion, what a robot was. Sensors are an important element of any robot which means that if we have a clever, decision making washing machine that would make it a robot. We learned there was still some disagreement amongst scientists as to exactly what a robot was but that the more autonomous (independent) it was, the more robotic it was. This is especially important if you are a robot like the Mars Rover as it takes 20 minutes to get a signal to it on Mars and that means you would need to know 20 minutes before it drove off a cliff! It’s better if it can make those decisions for itself at the time.

“Like a robot, you need a plan, you need instructions.”

We learned that robots can do parts of heart surgery better than humans but that the ones that do are very expensive and we still like humans to help control them. We also owe a debt to toy robot engineers for coming up with good ideas and cheaper ways of doing things and making robotics a lot less expensive in engineering, science and medicine. We heard all about Actroid, Asimo (from Honda) and StAIR.

The girls formed three teams – Nuts (supported by Shruti), Bolts (supported by Nick) and Chips (supported by Jack). Shruti, Nick and Jack are all third year undergraduates at Imperial College studying physics and geophysics and were able to share their experiences of life at a great university and what you need to do to get there.

The teams broke into sub teams of two or three to work with BoE-bots. BoE-bots have a body (the mechanical bits) and a brain (the microcontroller on the circuit board – in this case BS2). They didn’t look as pretty as Asimo!

We used a program called the Basic Stamp Editor on the laptops to program (write code) to give the BoE-bots instructions. We started by typing in a test program, written by someone else, to give us a better feel for programming. The first program ‘told’ the robot to go forward and then to turn around.

We then started experimenting with the program, learning all about loops and what different instructions meant and did. We learned some of this by trial and error, others by calculation and more still by getting puzzled and asking questions at the right time to learn the answers. We eventually programmed the robot to go forward and turn and map out a one meter square.

“I learnt when we plan something we should try it out first so we know if we need any changes.”

After a very nice lunch in the Library cafe we saw the competition course. This would involve making the robot go forward, backward, cross lines, turn and, hopefully, park at the end. We practiced long and hard, changed the programme, tested, changed it again to correct mistakes and finally were ready for the competition.

“I learnt that if it doesn’t work try try again! I also learnt that life's much easier if you work as a team. I achieved more leadership and team skills which will make a difference when I work in school and work within a team.”

Each of the Chips, Bolts and Nuts teams had three sub teams and there was a point scoring mechanism to decide the best team. The sub teams all competed and the result was a draw between two of the teams with the third close behind.

The students, staff and mentors had a very enjoyable day. We spent a lot of time trying new things, coming up with problems and solving them and learning how to keep going when things don’t go right. We worked as a team to complete a variety of engineering based challenges, learnt basic programming techniques, worked alongside undergraduate students to learn about university life and discovered how scientific methods and processes can be used in the real world.

“A lovely hands on workshop, lots of doing, good level of challenge.”

After our usual reflection time, we all headed back towards East London to go home.

Next stop is Session Five – Language and Lingustics, back at Forest School on Saturday 4th February.

Session Three - Gallery Slideshow

Session Three - Saturday 3rd December 2011

Thirty one Emerging Scholars came together on a grey, damp December morning for the Aspiration Olympics. Breakfast club provided opportunities to catch up with new friends, mentors and staff and start the day playing ‘commonality’ to learn a few of each others’ interests and a group game of ‘Samurai, Tiger, Grandmother’ (an interesting and more physical variation of rock, paper, scissors).

The first part of the day was Aspiration Olympics, beginning with two inspiring talks from Sasha Henriques, a genetic counselor, and Mamta Gera, an IT Project Manager with LoveFilm who is responsible for delivering ‘video on demand’ and worked on iPlayer. Both talked through the ‘step by step process’ and how they kept to their true passion despite the obstacles and challenges along the way.

The girls then moved on to the Step by Step game, coming together in ‘career’ groups (including medicine, law and communications) and mapping out some of the steps and challenges that they might face along the way. We ended with six paths of footprints across the school hall and a better idea of what might be involved and what was needed in order to get there. Two of the aspirations include being the doctor who researches and cures cancer and being the lawyer who uncovers the biggest miscarriages of justice to make sure the innocent people go free. We shall watch the progress of this with interest!

“I learnt that there are several barriers when achieving your dream or the job you want to do in the future. I understand that it will be quite hard but as long as you work hard and never lose sight of it, you will get there.”

The Red and Blue group swapped over from the subjects they had studied in Session One.

The English session focused on Ways of Seeing. The girls interpreted paintings, discussed the interpretations and challenged each other. The lesson ended with all the girls creating poems and with presentations to the class. The poems will be presented as part of the End of Year awards ceremony.

“I learned to write a poem out of a painting – this has helped me have a better understanding of the creator’s mind.”

The Art session provided an opportunity to look at objects and the impact on their surroundings. Ably supported by Forest's Art Scholars and Ashia Oozeer, the girls split into two groups to draw, conceptualise and then build willow sculptures and give presentations back to the group.

“I communicated well with people and took in different points from other colleagues. This will help me with future jobs.”

At the end of the day, we reflected on what we had learned and how to put it into practice in the weeks and months ahead.

Next stop is Session Four – Robotics, at Imperial College on Saturday 14th January.

Session Two - Gallery Slideshow