Robotic Kits for Kids
Science-inspired Activities for Kids, Start Introducing Robotics at an Early Age
Robotics for kids? I'm sure that you have experienced working with a robotic kit with your little one! Of course, it is not about expecting your child to learn extremely complicated electronic concepts which require background knowledge and intensive study. It is not about creating the next genius through forcing a child to learn things not within his or her level of understanding. It is about feeding your child's curiosity and mapping the child's line of interest.
Robotic kits for kids are available on amazon and you can choose from various designs and level of complexity. It contains all the diodes and other items you need to assemble the robot, including a DVD that will be your guide to go through it with your kid. It is a great way of spending quality time with your child while nurturing his brain with useful information; boosting his potentials and keeping him focused.
Photos in this article shows my son working on his first robotic kit. He was six years old here.
Now, He is 12 and Here is His Project in Science
Robotics for Kids Kit
Robotic kits and Soldering
view quiz statisticsSafety First
Note that many of the robotic kits available for sale requires soldering. When dealing with heat, fire or current, be sure to prepare your child in handling. Tell him or her what he or she needs to avoid and point out exactly what could possibly happen if he/she does not pay particular attention to the warning.
There are robotic kits that do not require soldering like the item I posted above. Kits like this are better options if your child is still young.
Why Choose Robotics as Part of Your Child's Activity
We Like to Give our Kids the Best We Could
Most kids these days are engaging in activities that are mostly simulated. I mean here, instead of playing indoor and outdoor games to physically stimulate their body and mind, they just sit down and play simulated games through a number of electronic gadgets available.
If you engage him in robotics, he will be interested in physically manipulating, creating, observing and causing "something" that will surely make him proud of it.
Read along to see other advantages of robotics.
You will answer many of his questions
Children are always curious about how things work, why things work and what are in it. Busy parents oftentimes reach some point of exhaustion in answering unending questions that a child posts. Many of his questions on how his toy can walk or talk or do other things will be answered after you are done with his very first robotics kit.
Answering Questions
Parents are often caught unprepared to answer too many questions from an inquisitive child. There are times that parents' minds are too preoccupied with tons of concerns that they may not have a minute to digest what the question is all about. When your child is interested how things work and they start asking you about these, give them a robotic kit and they will discover the answer to, not all but, many of their questions.
It will encourage your child be observant and critical
Well, that means that he will be asking more questions but you will be happy to hear his or her line of questions. Sometimes, you will notice that a child asks questions only to draw your attention. You will notice this when he starts making some not sensible ones: I mean, those questions that you know he already knew the answers.
Much of How we Understand Things is by Observing Them
When a child's attention is engaged and he puts his or her full focus on it, he could conceptualize the underlying explanations to how things work more with ease than when a parent tries to describe the concepts thru words. So too is the fact that if everything is explained to a child, he will be lazy to find his way in learning new things.
Enhanced attention span
More often than not, it is a struggle to catch a child's attention and a bigger concern to keep him focused. These days, a lot of kids are diagnosed of attention deficit disorder. Sometimes, I think that the generation had been transforming to be more active (that's a more positive way of looking at it).
Engaging kids with robotics will surely catch their attention.
An Increase in Attention Deficit Syndrome
Child psychologists and children educators agree that there is an increased number of attention deficit cases now as compared to about three decades ago. It becomes more challenging now to keep a child focused on a task. It is likewise difficult to handle their hyperactive tendencies.
Give these kids something to assemble and manipulate and you will see them sit and preoccupied for hours.
Great Way to challenge a child's mind
Even as adult, I got fascinated with this robotic kits. We learn about circuits, capacitors, diodes, and other basic things in high school physics but I did not have some actual hands on experience assembling these items myself.
Most Popular Robotic Kit on Amazon
Tips for Parents
Get acquainted with some basics
The kit may have a parent or teacher's guide with it. Take the time to review it before you start working on it with your child. It helps a lot to refer to glossary of electronic terms. Then translate the terms into a simplified presentation. It is not really required that you have to study electronics in depth before you can work on a robot kit with your child.
Depending on your area, robotics may be offered as a special class or out of school or extra curricular courses. Nonetheless, the tuition may be a bit harsh to the pocket. Aside from that, you'll miss the opportunity of spending quality time with your child while creating and discovering something fun.
Explain simply
Introduce the materials to your child one after the other. From the most simple to the more complex. Be sure to make interesting introduction and start always with something he knew. For example, if you are explaining about the robot sensors, you may start by letting him realize how he sense things. "How can you tell me what are the colors of these flowers in the picture?" Then, you can go on saying that the robot feels what it is programmed to feel through the sensors. Since you mentioned the word "programmed", you have to elaborate on that too.
Of course, you know more what your child already know so try not to make it too simplistic that he will think you are treating him younger than he should be treated.
Let him do most of the job
Let him do the soldering, cutting, assembling. Of course, you need to teach him first how to solder properly and give him safety tips so he will not end up burning his fingers or hurting himself while working.
When is a child ready? - Factor it by age?
Readiness to learn something may not always be by age. The primary question would be: Is he interested? Nonetheless, I put the poll based on age because kids have particular set of behavior or tendencies at a particular age. Of course, this is a sweeping generalization because there are many other factors to consider. Yet, again, I suppose that age still stands as one big factor in assessing readiness.
Feel free to put in your comments if you disagree with me.
