Good Robot Projects For K-5?

bugs2squash writes "Some of the parents of kids at my son's elementary school would like to set up a robotics club for the children. I see that Lego has a new line of robotics bricks called wedo (PDF) and that seems to be the path of least resistance to doing something. But I wanted to ask: What experience do all y'all have of running a robotics club for this age group (5 thru 10 years old) and what factors made it a success (or failure)? Did you use a commercial kit of parts or brew something from scratch? What kind of projects work well with kids this age? I was thinking maybe making robot flowers (yes, I know they'd all rather build robotic sharks with lasers)." (Here's another page about Wedo.)

Comments

Perp-a-tron

[Tx]

Whenever I think about kids and robots I can't help but think about Perp-a-tron. Not sure if a child molesting robot is a suitable project for the kids, but it'll put them ahead of the game.

Re:Perp-a-tron

[Em Emalb]

Don't forget your robot insurance, especially if the little ones are going to be around their grandparents much...

http://www.hulu.com/watch/2340/saturday-night-live-old-glory

Re:Too young

[TubeSteak]

Kids are fucking smart...really really smart. They are way under utilized in our society.

I know man, ever since those child labor laws were passed in 1938, business has just been terrible!

Re:Sharks with Lasers? Feh

[yo303]

10 year old kids weren't even born when that movie was released. Now, Transformers on the other hand has had a lot of influence.

Meh. Those kids weren't even remotely planned when the original Transformer cartoons came out. Oh, does that make me sound old?