Lego robots racing on TUAS campus
In July, Turku University of Applied Sciences organized two Lego Workshops for Chinese schoolchildren attending Science and Technology Summer Camp in Turku. During the workshops, the children learned how to build and program Lego robots with the instruction by TUAS students.
The Lego Workshop was organized by the FIRMA, an IT project learning environment operating within TUAS. Through the FIRMA, students are offered an opportunity to carry out their studies in projects, building contacts with working life.
Lego Workshop as part of summer camp
The foreign visitors were 11 to 15 years old schoolchildren, who arrived to Turku to attend Science and Technology Summer Camp. The Lego Workshop arranged at TUAS campus formed one part of the summer camp agenda. In addition to constructing Lego robots, the children got to build birdhouses, make ice cream and visit a planetarium.
There were altogether 41 schoolchildren from Shanghai and Tianjin attending the two workshops during the two days. With the pupils, five teachers and two interpreters travelled to Turku to get to know Finland and the Finnish teaching culture.
IT students introducing the world of robotics
In the Lego Workshop, the young participants were divided into small groups of 2 to 3 children. They learned about building and programming robots with the help of TUAS students acting as their instructors. The aim of the workshop was to build a robot capable of completing a racetrack in a competition arranged at the end of the day. The racetrack was built specifically for this purpose in one of TUAS campus buildings, and Mindstorm Education EV3 was used for programming the robots.
The groups were instructed by TUAS IT students working at the FIRMA during the summer. Thanks to the small group sizes, it was easy for the instructors to teach and assist the eager robot builders during the workshop. The workshop served as the first contact to robotics for many of the young participants, and the enthusiasm was tangible.
TUAS has arranged workshops from foreign schoolchildren also earlier. The interest towards workshops of this kind is increasing.
