The WCIT Livery has long had an affiliation with the Royal Corps of Signals, the Army’s ICT specialists, so the WCIT Charity was delighted to be able to be able to support another aspect of the Royal Signals’ work – it’s museum in Dorset. Their request was for Spheros, codable robots which could be used by students and cadets to learn basic coding, robotic system capabilities and the communication requirements of semi and fully autonomous systems.
The overall aim was to inspire young people about the many different employment opportunities that STEM presents, both military and civilian, in the field of communications. The museum surpassed its conservative estimate of reaching up to 2,000 young people, and actually interacted with more than 11,000 over the course of the year, both at the museum and during outreach events.
The robots have huge potential, and the museum is still trying out different ways for students to interact with them. The appointment of a new STEM Learning volunteer will hopefully increase the variety of lesson plans the students and cadets of all ages can enjoy.
As one teacher said: “The addition of coding and robotics was fun and engaging for the children, and they enjoyed the freedom of creating codes for the robots.”
