Summer robotics course for high school students

The TechCamp robotics course is held at Polimi in Milan, and is exclusively for secondary school students in their second year on following application.

The robotics course is conducted by experts in the sector of robotics. It stands out from other robotics courses due to its practical, experiential approach, which is perfectly capable of providing students with complete skills and knowledge in this area.

This is a STEM course designed to prepare today’s students — the digital generation — with basic skills to enrich their cultural background with concepts, information and — why not? — to probe specific scientific/technological subjects with a primarily practical approach and the interactive method necessary to integrate knowledge relating to technological innovations, which are increasingly on today’s agenda.

Robotics for students
For many years, robots have been a source of fascination, especially for kids. A robotics course for students is also a major window into one of the most promising professions in the immediate future — namely, the ability to program and create robots to make everyday life easier for humanity.

We usually tend to identify robots in terms of science fiction, and particularly in terms of films. Some examples include very well-known, successful movies such as the ‘Terminator’ saga, ‘I, Robot’, ‘Bicentennial Man’ or ‘Transformers’.

In other words, the robot stereotype is almost always a humanoid that walks, runs and interacts naturally with us humans. It should be underlined, in fact, just how science is taking giant leaps towards this stylised, stereotypical idea of robots, although the reality today is that these technological inventions are essential elements of modern industry, of our households, and recently also in healthcare and education.

Robots applied to real life

We have all seen robots on production lines (for example, in the automotive, textile and food industries) as they incessantly assemble, paint or handle different parts.

Domestically, ‘robots’ have become increasingly widespread and purchased for mixing, chopping and cooking, not to mention the most common robotic vacuums. With the rapid evolution of robotics, however, it seems like in only a few years time, these home ‘helpers’ of ours will seem like something old-fashioned, a bit like the floor polishers our mothers and grandmothers used a few decades ago.

As regards education, especially in the healthcare sector, the first robot prototypes have been studied and built in recent years to help children and youths suffering from autism.

These specific robots are programmed to facilitate communication for these people, with the hope of eliminating the feeling of isolation that is one of the main problems of this neurodevelopmental disorder.

It is therefore undeniable that the future will bring with it a growing number of robots. Being able to program a robot is one technical ability that experts will most appreciate in younger generations, making the introduction of robotics in schools necessary, with the consequent increasing demand for robotics courses for students.

The aim of the robotics course

The robotics TechCamp aims to familiarise participants with the general concept of robots and their programming. Different, interesting and stimulating questions about robots will be addressed:

• What is a robot? Exploring the details of all the technical characteristics of these new scientific gems
• What movements can it make? Studying every aspect of its nature and the actions and movements it can make
• How can we describe its motion? Through an in-depth study of the basic laws of physics, applied to perform certain actions
• How can we make it move the way we want? With the correct programming, robots can be made to move in the simplest to the most complex ways
• And: What does it mean to program a robot?

In the strict sense, the process and method are described, through which it is possible to fully understand what programming a robot means.

An experiential robotics school

Tech Camp is the only experiential robotics school that makes the experience of professors and researchers at the Politecnico di Milano available to secondary school students.
We give students the basic tools to answer the fundamental questions about robotics, and more.

Participants will also have the unique chance to programme a real robot for teaching purposes and to observe the results of their programming, the fruit of the hard work and passion they have invested in the robotics course.

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Technical requirements

To participate in the course, you must bring your own laptop computer. Under no circumstances may you use a tablet. The necessary software would not be properly supported.

It is highly recommended that you also bring your own mouse, because the usage of the robot simulation software with your laptop’s trackpad is quite laborious.

You will need one of the following operating systems with Office installed:

• Windows 7 (or later) or Windows Server (2012 R2+)
• MacOS 10.10 (or later)
• Linux (deb and rpm format)

For the software packages used in the course, a guided installation by the instructor will be conducted during the first afternoon hands-on exercise.

If you have any doubts you can write an email to assistenzainformatica.techcamp@gmail.com or join the Telegram group.

Video presentation