The beginning
Meet the students who designed the Leaphy Original.
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Design and build an affordable robot for education with the laser cutter. Because robotics should become available to all students. Teacher Olivier van Beekum ordered a stack of wood and a box of Arduino electronics and so the adventure of his Science class began. One design soon stood out: Hannah and Vroukje's "leaf robot". Complete with name: Leaphy.
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Hannah and Vroukje in the Sciencelab of the Corderius College.
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"When we saw that everyone started building square cupboards,
we decided to start on the design side, "
Vroukje explains the playful form.
Hannah adds: "We wanted a striking design with rounded shapes. The petal is also reflected in the design of the wheels. "
Hannah adds: "We wanted a striking design with rounded shapes. The petal is also reflected in the design of the wheels. "
The first prototype-Leaphy's
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Olivier van Beekum, why this project?
"Many educational robots are quite expensive, while robotics is the way to get familiar with skills such as computational thinking and problem solving. That's why I wanted to make robotics financially feasible for as many students as possible. It was important that it would become a kit: by building something yourself, you really get to know it. This applies to the wooden construction, but certainly also to the connection of the electronics. Vroukje and Hannah handled that wonderfully. "
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Hannah:
"You learn that you have to think patiently and step by step."
"You will also think more about how the robots in society are actually made,"
Says Vroukje.
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From first design to adult robot
After the design phase, the second phase of this project followed. Students Luuk, Marien, Tünde and Nienke joined in and with their help the first design was expanded into an adult robot.
In the meantime, together with the science4kids foundation, work was done on special software for the Leaphy: with the block code, programming became much more accessible, especially for primary school students. High school students also enjoy working with it. It starts simple, but you can create very complex things with it.
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Vroukje helps out on learning physical computing.
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Code blocks
"The student does not have to bother with the complicated syntax of code language yet, but can immediately get started with the logic in the program: If-Then-Anders. Especially in education - where time is scarce - that helps enormously, "
Says Roeland Smith, Olivier's fellow robotics teacher.
"By the way: the code blocks are so flexible that quite complicated robot projects can be designed with them up to VWO 6."
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Leaphy in the future
Vroukje, Hannah and the other students are already studying, but under the banner of the Leaphy Foundation, hundreds of Leaphys are assembled and programmed by primary and secondary school students every year. Robotics for every student? Leaphy is looking forward to it!
Vroukje, Hannah and the other students are already studying, but under the banner of the Leaphy Foundation, hundreds of Leaphys are assembled and programmed by primary and secondary school students every year. Robotics for every student? Leaphy is looking forward to it!
Thanks to Bennie Mols and Nieske Vergunst, the authors of the book "Hello Robot" and Sarah Lieshout from Krabmedia
