Lesson 01 · 60 minutes
Robot or Not?
What makes a machine a robot
Today's goal
Decide for yourself whether something is a robot, using a test you can defend.
Ideas in this lesson
- Sense → Think → Do: the loop every robot runs
- A toaster senses and does, but barely thinks
- A remote-control car does, but you are doing the thinking
- Autonomy is a slider, not a switch
Sense → Think → Do
Today the robot is mostly DO. You are its brain. That is the point: by the end of the club, you will hand the thinking over to the robot one piece at a time.
How the session runs
- Argue about five machines: toaster, dishwasher, drone, Roomba, self-driving car. Robot or not? Write down the reason, not just the verdict.
- Build the test as a class: it senses something, it decides something, it acts on the world. Two out of three is not a robot.
- Meet the robot. Turn it on and watch the servo wiggle — that is the robot saying 'my parts are connected'.
- Drive it with the IR remote. Ask: who is sensing? Who is thinking? Who is doing?
- Press 5 (obstacle avoidance) and put your hand in front of it. Ask the same three questions again. Something changed.
Try this
- Find a machine at home that senses but does not think. Bring the argument next week.
- Is a thermostat a robot? Defend either answer — both can be right if the reason is good.
- Where on the autonomy slider is our robot with the remote? Without the remote?
When it goes wrong
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| The servo does not wiggle at startup | The servo is unplugged or in the wrong header. Nothing else today will work either. |
| The robot ignores the remote | Check the remote's battery tab is pulled out, and that you are within a few metres, pointing roughly at the front. |
Notes for the grown-up
Resist settling the argument. The disagreement is the lesson — you want them to leave with a test they built, because they will use it against you in week 10 when the robot does something clever and they want to know whether it 'really' decided.