DanceBot – A robot that dances to your favorite song
As part of Pro Juventutes “Ferienplausch”, 20 children aged between 10 and 14 visited ETH Zurich for a DanceBot workshop. During the project, they soldered, constructed, styled, and programmed the DanceBots with support of Prof. Siegwart’s team and students from ETH Zurich. At the end of the workshop, the robots were dancing and blinking to the children’s favorite songs. NG
DanceBot Workshop
On the first day, the group was given a tour of the campus, visiting the main building and learning more about the ETH Zurich. After arriving in the LEE building, the children were given a short introduction to the workshop. They then began constructing the robot’s electronics by soldering capacitors, LED lights, and microchips onto the circuit board at the right location. In the end, the motors were turning, the LEDs were shining, and the loudspeaker was playing music.
On the morning of the second day, the children spent time creatively styling their robots. A wide variety of DanceBots were created; for example a Minion, a flower, and a furry creature.
Phlipp Reist and Stefan Bertschi from the Autonomous Systems Lab (ASL) are most impressed: “The children have shown talent for soldering. We made quick progress and had fewer short circuits than in other workshops. And the creatively styled robots turned out beautiful.”
The group also had a chance to get to know the many different robots developed by the scientists of the ASL. In the afternoon, the children programmed choreographies for the DanceBots and let them dance and blink to their favorite songs. At the closing of the workshop, the children presented their choreographies to the group and to their parents. The children could take home their robots with them.