Robots

ROBOT KITS

	LEGO Mindstorms is a series of terrific programmable LEGO robots. See the website for kits, apps, downloads, and building instructions.
	OWI Robotics is a great source for robot kits of all kinds. For example, check out the Robotic Arm and the Moonwalker II.
	The 4M robot kits are good bets for younger builders. Among these are a tin-can robot, a solar rover, a brush robot, and a doodle bot.
	Arduino is “the microcontroller that launched a maker revolution.” What can you do with it? Check out this Popular Science article: One 12-Year-Old’s Quest to Remake Education, One Arduino at a Time.
	Check out this Arduino Tutorial from MIT.
	By Michael Margolis, Make an Arduino-Controlled Robot (Maker Media, 2012) shows hopeful robot-builders how to do it. Also by Margolis, see the Arduino Cookbook (O’Reilly Media, 2011).
	The Hummingbird Robotics Kit is a spin-off from a research project at Carnegie Mellon’s CREATE lab, whose mission was to create engineering and robotics activities appealing to middle-school-level girls and boys. The site has instructions, tutorials, sample robots, project ideas, and curricula.
	Sphero! Check out these great programmable robots for kids.

ACTIVITIES AND LESSON PLANS

	See NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers for information about the robotic rovers. The site has pages for kids, students, and educators, with many activities and printable resources.
	For more resources, see Mars.
	Robots for Kids has a history of robotics, a robot image gallery, robot video clips, online experiments with electrical circuits, lesson plan outlines, and quizzes.
	Robot Guide is a terrific iPad and iPhone app featuring a host of wonderful robots. Find out all about them.
	From NASA, Robotics Lesson Plans has a long and interesting list, variously appropriate for students in grades K-12. Also at the site are downloadable educator’s resource and curriculum guides.
	From PBS Learning Media, What Is a Robot? is a lesson plan supplemented with QuickTime videos of several different kinds of robots, targeted at grades 3-5. (Requires registration.)
	Play Botball! This is a robotics competition of middle- and high-school-level students. Participants get a kit with reusable components to get them started building their robots.
	See Junk Drawer Robotics, a 4H-designed robotics curriculum for grades 3-12. Available for purchase.

ROBOT ARTS AND CRAFTS

	Stephen T. Johnson’s My Little Blue Robot (Simon & Schuster, 2012) is a build-it-yourself book with which kids can made a talking (!) cardboard robot on wheels. All the pieces, of heavy-duty cardboard, are right there in the book. (No glue; the whole thing goes together with slots and tabs.) For ages 3-8.
	Make a great robot from a cardboard box! Viviane Schwartz’s Welcome to Your Awesome Robot (Flying Eye Books, 2013) shows how, via great cartoon illustrations. For ages 4-8.
	Ralph Masiello’s Robot Drawing Book (Charlesbridge, 2011) has step-by-step instructions for drawing a wonderful array of colorful robots. For ages 7-9.
	Robert Malone’s Recycled Robots: 10 Robot Projects (Workman Publishing, 2012) combines a delightful and informative book on robots with instructions and accessories for making ten great robots out of recycled materials. (You’ll have to supply the boxes, paper towel rolls, and plastic cups.) Fun and educational for ages 8 and up.
	Rob Ives’s Paper Automata (Tarquin Publications, 1997) is a collection of four working paper models (cut and glue together). For example, make hopping sheep and a pecking hen. For ages 12 and up.
	Keisuke Saka’s Karakuri: How to Make Mechanical Paper Models That Move (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012) explains the mechanism by which karakuri work (levers, cams, cranks, gears, linkages, and Geneva stops), describes basic paper crafting techniques, and includes five karakuri models to build, among them a tea-serving robot. For ages 12 and up.
	Build tin-can robots!
	Robot Crafts from Activity Village include a cut-and-paste robot, edible cracker-and-vegetable robots, a robot costume, and a robot mask.
	From the MAKE website, see these illustrated instructions for making Cereal Box Robots.
	California artist Larry Wong builds robotic sculptures called Mechanoids from junk. Check them out here.