Just what is an Ecological Robot? Our NuVu High School students explored this topic during Winter Session II, through a design studio aimed at getting comfortable with robotics and building awareness of the robotic applications possible today.

Under the topic of ecology, students worked within four categories: water body cleanup, air quality index, soil erosion and trash collection. “Based on these four buckets, students chose a project to focus on, then we dove into simply understanding some of the technical aspects of robotics,” shares NuVu’s Technology Coach Ayush Gandhi.

For instance, some students dove into light-fearing and light-loving bots - designing a motor that would either move towards or away from light. Others used a line tracer robot, with a sensor that followed a black line on white paper. “These are the technical skills that were learned the first week, and then from there the students' imagination took off,” says Ayush.

Once an ecological category was chosen by each student, they were encouraged to solve a possible problem within that space—being mindful of where a robotics solution would actually be useful—and only replacing human involvement when justified.

“For these concepts, we are trying to build robotic solutions where human involvement may not be the best way forward,” says Ayush. We teach the students to be mindful of where the robotic application is used, because although robotics as a technical field is great to learn, it has both merits and demerits. So when you're considering this question, why robotics? You're being mindful about your usage of it.”

Since the group was mixed between beginners and intermediate students, the studio was also a chance for older and more experienced students to mentor those new to robotics. From debugging to checking circuit diagrams, the intermediate students would encourage the beginners to run through checklists and urge patience when faced with a rebuild or project reboot after failure.  Ayush says this was an important part of the studio, because "Hearing it from a coach is one thing, but hearing it from a peer makes them think, 'Okay, fine, I need to push harder or even start over.'"

For the more advanced students in the group, the challenges increased in difficulty, such as working on an underwater ocean or river floor cleanup, and waterproofing components. “This more advanced group tried to come up with a solution to design a casing, then create a submarine setup for water bed analysis.” This ambitious project attempted to map out areas of debris underwater, relaying information for cleanup activities. “They did not get to the final application piece of it,” shares Ayush, “but that's part of the concept development.

Another student project, which Ayush says was more execution-heavy, involved a boat that would lower a magnet onto the bed of a river or ocean, and metallic elements such as scraps of metal trash or debris could be extracted by magnetic forces.  “The students made it fully remote controlled using a PlayStation controller to control the boat. "The biggest challenge was establishing communication between the PlayStation controller and the ESP32, which they eventually figured out—it was great seeing them reach this outcome through research and trial and error.”

The students also took a trip to the Harvard University Science Center, meeting with experts in the field of robotics, an experience Ayush says deepened the students’ understanding of the technology each was attempting to learn. “These experiences gave students a glimpse into real-world applications,” he shares.

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