We invite schoolgirls to Imperial College London for lessons to learn simple robotics and be inspired by the sheer vibrancy of an exciting university environment.

Since 2010, Robogals London has been running robotics workshops for primary and secondary school students. We invite schoolgirls to Imperial College London for lessons to learn simple robotics and be inspired by the sheer vibrancy of an exciting university environment.

This year, we have moved outside the classroom and participated in the London Big Bang Fair 2011, held on March 10 -12. We collaborated with Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) London to set up a stand at the Big Bang Fair, which was held at the London Excel Centre, a massive and well-known exhibition area.

The Big Bang Fair is a fair for young students and their teachers to walk about and be inspired by scientific projects and exhibitions. Our goal was to attract teachers to take up lessons with us, and to interest young children to participate in science and technology.

Our preparation began in December, and involved endless meetings with our Lessons Manager and IET contact, Rob Heaton. We eventually came up with the idea of barcode scanners: we built a scanner with the Lego brick, and got children to respond by building barcodes using LEGO pieces, as fast as possible. This would show students the impact of SET (science, engineering and technology) on our lives, and how simple the concepts really are!

Prior to the fair, we designed the layout of our stand, the instruction sheets for the children to use and flyers that we wanted to give away during the fair. The hands-on session for the children had to be prepared and planned, coordination was needed to set up the stand and transport necessary equipment. Most importantly, volunteers were scheduled and trained in time for the fair. We had never participated in such a large external event, so this was a great learning experience for us!

During the fair, students competed to build a barcode from the LEGO parts. We were surprised by how fast the students could build them! One of our youngest participants,(who was 7 years old) managed to build an entire robot barcode on her own!

Our stand was visited by different age groups of young students as well as their teachers. We spoke to many school teachers, and they expressed interest in our workshops and left their contacts with us. We also had a list for the students to put their contact details down so we could contact their schools subsequently.

A lot of schools participated in Big Bang Fair, and some of them even travelled from as far as Manchester to attend the Big Bang Fair! We also spoke to companies about potential partnership as well as sponsorship. So this Fair was a most fruitful event for Robogals London!

Our success truly comes from our volunteers from Imperial College and the IET volunteers who worked with us for the fair. They were very enthusiastic and gave their time to promote Robogals in the Big Bang Fair. IET London supported us all the way to the day of Big Bang Fair, with time and mentorship, and a lot of advice on how to proceed. Our thanks go also to Mr. Rob Heaton, who helped us out so much with the fair, and without whom we would not have been able to participate!

Big Bang Fair has definitely been one of the most successful events we have held since our establishment. Hence in the meantime, we are making preparations for the upcoming National Big Bang Fair in July 2011! We can’t wait!