The Benefits of Robotics
Lego Mindstorms robots can be built in so many different ways and for such a diverse range of tasks that they easily capture children’s imagination. Lego Mindstorms robots are fun educational tools that provide a hands-on way of learning engineering and coding. In a playful manner, students learn how to collaborate in order to create something new or to solve problems. Building robots in teams encourages them to voice their thoughts and to interact in a creative and constructive way with other students.
Lego has created excellent course material for teachers allowing them to teach their students coding skills based on real life challenges, such as:
- Designing cars that can park themselves safely without driver intervention.
- Designing features for a car that will improve safety as it reverses.
- Improving driving safety by creating an automated, driverless vehicle that can follow a line.
- Designing an autonomous car that can safely cross an intersection.
Because code is rarely perfect the first time, students have to look at where errors occur and then troubleshoot (“debug”) their code. They therefore also learn how to deal with failures and learn to accept setbacks as a part of their learning process.
This program gives students from poor rural backgrounds an opportunity to interact with modern technology not only as users but as creators. By learning how to solve increasingly complex engineering and coding problems they can build up the confidence required for the pursuit of further studies at institutes of higher learning.
Activities of the Foundation
2021
- Donation of 200 Lego Mindstorms EV3 sets to schools. Schools from economically less advantaged areas could apply for donations of Lego Mindstorms EV3 through the facebook page of the foundation
- Setting up a replacement parts depot containing 50 Lego Mindstorms EV3 sets, because Lego stopped the production of Lego Mindstorms EV3 sets
2020
- Robotics competition for primary and high school students at Rajabhat University Loei
- Donation of 265 Lego Mindstorms EV3 education sets to rural schools in Thailand
2019
- 1st Advanced robotics course for Thai Teachers
- 2nd Basic Robotics Training for Thai teachers, university students and lecturers at the University of Chiang Mai
- 2nd Advanced robotics course for Thai Teachers at Suratthani Rajabhat University
- 1st Robotics Training for Laotian Teachers and Students at the National University of Laos in Vientiane