summerreading Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 I'd love to hear from parents whose child is seriously considering studying robotics. My 12 year old has been saying he wants to be a robotics engineer since he was 7. Sounds like an expensive major! What resources are you using? We have done workshops at Tufts when we lived in MA, which was great. He has Mindstorms, but is a little disorganized with the pieces so that is slow getting off the ground. He found robotics on Khan Academy, so I am looking into getting the parts for that and found this Intro to Robotics MOOC he will try out if he can meet the prereqs. https://www.qut.edu.au/study/short-courses-and-professional-development/short-courses/introduction-to-robotics Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 If he wants to be an engineer, you can introduce him to electronics and microcontrollers. I have been documenting our foray into electronics and arduino and raspberry pi if you want to check out some of the books we've used. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 Is there an Engineering For Kids anywhere near you? We have one that just started up locally fairly recently (last couple of years) and they were willing to do a specialized robotics class for homeschoolers, It is more rigorous than their normal class, meets for a longer period of time each week, and has been really quite good. My 11 year old is in it but there are also Seniors in High School. DS has gotten to work with kids his age but also kids who are older and working on more advanced things. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 If he wants to be an engineer, you can introduce him to electronics and microcontrollers. I have been documenting our foray into electronics and arduino and raspberry pi if you want to check out some of the books we've used. How cool!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 The intro mechanical engineering class at UMN[1] has a highly constrained robotics demo component that ds8 and I have gone to the past couple of years. It is fabulous for a couple of reasons. First it show the amazing things that smart kids can do with an arduino and $100; Second it shows the entirely adequate results a gifted/obsessed 10yo might achieve...Sort of a ceiling and a floor... Usually, we read through the first chapter of Dustyn Roberts' "Making Things Move" before hand so DS can understand constraints... a budget/space/tech limited egg cracking machine is the best intro to a small budget robotic project I've found... open ended Rube Goldberg or other projects tend to result in to grandiose ideas... 4-H's junk drawer robotics would probably be a great prelude as well. Maybe your local engineering school has something similar? [1] http://www.me.umn.edu/robotshow/ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 . Usually, we read through the first chapter of Dustyn Roberts' "Making Things Move" before hand I just put my copy on hold at the library. Thank you for the recommendation! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
summerreading Posted April 22, 2015 Author Share Posted April 22, 2015 If he wants to be an engineer, you can introduce him to electronics and microcontrollers. I have been documenting our foray into electronics and arduino and raspberry pi if you want to check out some of the books we've used. Thanks! These are both on the wishlist Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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