How to Easily Introduce Your Kids to Robotics at Home: A Fun and Engaging Guide for Parents

One thing is happening now-more smart robots have shown up in our lives. From smart car driving to robot housekeeping, Intelligent robots and programming are used in various aspects of our lives.

As parents, we also hope our children can get in touch with and start robotic education early on. But how can we carry out robot enlightenment education at home so that children can not only have fun in their spare time but also learn useful skills at an early age?

Ⅰ、Why do we need robot enlightenment education?

Before we delve into “how to start robotics education”, we need to understand: what are the specific abilities that robotics education can help children develop?

1. Coding entrance: Through programming, we give robots a soul. Let the robot act! So in Robotics Enlightenment, children are sure to get to coding. When coding, children’s logical thinking, and algorithm design ability can also be improved!
2. Hands-on ability: Children need to assemble the robot with their own hands, giving them the opportunity to improve their hands-on ability and put theory into practice. For example, when children need to build their first spider robot kit, they need to know how to test the servo. During build, children could learn how to build things from scratch and it is a great DIY lesson for our children.
3. Electro-mechanical knowledge: During the assembly process, children will also come into contact with mechanical structures, electronic components, and circuits, recognizing them early on. Take a smart car kit, children could learn how object avoidance happens by the ultrasonic module.
4. Constructive skills: From flat drawings to three-dimensional models to complete the construction of the robot. The children have to use their imagination and understand the relationship between the parts before they can realize it. With this set of process, the children’s spatial construction ability is also practiced!
5. Active learning ability: The greatest charm of robotics education is its fun. Children learn through fun, and gain a sense of accomplishment in the process of building and programming, which will inspire them to further explore and upgrade their interests and cultivate the habit of active learning.

Knowing the many benefits of robotics initiation, can’t you wait to learn how to proceed to get started?

Ⅱ、No basic knowledge needed to Start Robotics At Home Easily?

Of course you can start robotic education at home without any prior experience.Here is how you starts.

1. Get a robot starter kit – Don’t worry about designing a curriculum or coming up with an idea. Just ask your children what kind of robot they are interested in. There are many options such as a robot car, robot arm, spider robot, or maybe a robot dog. When you get the robot starter kit, simply start building. But remember to check the product information to ensure that the robot kit is suitable for your children’s age and skill level.
2. Be a student-After completing the first robot kit, you can encourage your children to ask questions or give a demo to you or the family, explaining how they built the robot and even showing off the kit to build their confidence. Now, you can ask them to teach you how to code the robot, as they have just learned how to code. You can ask the children how to code the robot to walk forward or how the robot arm can catch things. By teaching, the children will gain a deeper understanding of the code they just learned and will be encouraged to learn more.
3. Build more projects-Now that you and your kids are ready for a bigger challenge, You can buy a new advanced robot kit for your kid to build. As your children build more robots, they will gain valuable experience and improve their building and coding skills. During this time, you may need to spend time building alongside your children or revisiting educational materials to learn together until all the robot kits are completed.
4. Build your DIY robot-After you have completed all the robot starter kits and learned the fundamentals of robot code, robot structure, robot circuit modules, and sensors, it’s time to level up and build your DIY robot. This will be a completely different experience, as you will need to come up with the idea, purchase all the parts, and learn the necessary code for the project. You can find ideas on forums such as DIY Robotics, RobotShop, or Dronebot Forum. You may even need to use 3D printing or laser engraving to create the parts for your robot DIY. Successfully finishing the first DIY robot will be a huge achievement and mark the end of your children’s robotic education. From here, it will be the beginning of a new journey into exploring the world of robotics for your children.

 

Through detailed steps in the video, even those without a basic understanding can easily install

Ⅲ、What do I need to pay attention to in the teaching process?

When we open the robot teaching, in order to make the machine its smooth running, and in order to make the children learn better, we need to pay attention to the following points:

1. Encourage children to solve problems: If you encounter a problem in the process, parents should not rush to do it themselves and take over the problem. If we want children to grow, we need to encourage them to think for themselves, try different approaches, and learn from their mistakes.
2. Step by step, from easy to difficult: Do not choose too complicated programs at the beginning, start from simple and easy to understand programs, gradually increase the difficulty, so that children gradually build up confidence and interest.
3. Keep it fun and entertaining: Robotics education shouldn’t be boring. Parents can incorporate games, stories and other elements into the teaching so that children can learn while having fun.
4. Giving Positive Motivation: Every child learns at a different pace, and we give them timely positive feedback and encouragement, recognizing their efforts and progress – even small successes are worth celebrating! This will help your child build confidence, maintain enthusiasm for learning, and carry that enthusiasm into their future learning and life.

Ⅳ、Recommend robot kits

Share some useful educational robot kits

1. Lego Mindstorms EV3: suitable for children and teenagers aged 10 and above, powerful functionality, highly extensible, supports multiple programming languages, but relatively high in price.
2. Makeblock mBot: Suitable for children over 8 years old, easy to assemble and program, relatively inexpensive, but with relatively simple functions.
3. acebott robot kit: Designed for children to start robotic education, equipped with an ESP32 controller board, supports ACECode and Arduino IDE includes spider robot kit, robot arm kit, smart car kit, biped robot kit.

Ⅴ、Factors to consider when picking the robot kit

When selecting robotic education products, parents need to consider the following factors:

1. Consider the child’s age when choosing products to ensure they are neither too simple nor too complex, in order to maintain the child’s interest in learning. You can verify the product information to confirm this.
2. Programming language: We should choose a programming language that is easy for children to understand and master.
   Based on the child’s existing foundation and aptitude for programming, we should select an appropriate programming language.
   For example, graphical programming languages such as Scratch and Blockly are suitable for beginners under 10 years old, while text-based programming languages such as Python are suitable for children with some programming background.
3. The child’s interests: Choose the type of robot that the child is interested in, for example: those who like cars can choose a small car robot kit, and those who like robotic arms can choose a robotic arm kit.Do not shop the robot kits your child don’t like. It will ruins their passion for learning.

Conclusion

Hope this article can help you understand how to easily start robot education for your child at home. Choose appropriate tools and methods, and explore the mysteries of the robot world together with your child!