8 Tips for Kids and Beginners to Learn Robotics Basics

Robotics is a field in STEM that has grown in popularity within the last decade. It teaches students to be creative and to think critically while making an electronic figure. Some important topics in robotics are electronics and programming, which are key to creating unique models.

Here are some tips that can help beginners and kids to learn the basics of robotics.

1. Establish a Realistic Goal

Robotics can be a daunting topic for many at first, so beginners should set a realistic goal that makes sense for them. This means that they should have low expectations for what they first accomplish and then venture toward larger projects.

As a beginner, you should keep your mind focused on building your first robots with a single purpose rather than multiple since multi-purpose robots are complex. With your realistic goals, take every step to further your progress toward your goal.

2. Follow an Online Course

Online courses are easily accessible resources that you can use to learn the basics of robotics. They typically have video demonstrations or walkthroughs that you can follow to learn about robotics and explore its history and application in the world. Some websites that provide online courses include these:

• Khan Academy
• Coursera
• MIT OpenCourseWare
• STEMpedia

With any of these sources, you can learn about the essentials of robotics and programming so that you can build your own robot. The courses tend to follow the latest technologies so that the information that you learn is up to date and relevant to your future projects.

3. Be Open to Make Mistakes

Mastering the basics of robotics may not happen within a day, but it can take weeks. However, with every day that you work with robotics, you will likely make mistakes, which you can identify and fix so that you can avoid making the same mistake with your next project.

4. Communicate with Others Frequently

Learning the basics of robotics with other people can help encourage you since you can work with them and learn from them. If you have questions, you should not be afraid to ask an expert in the field so that you can expand your knowledge in the field and apply it. You can ask how to implement some of your ideas with them and eventually implement it.

Other ways of communicating with others depend on your comforts. You can join an online community to share your ideas with others. You can join a robotics club so that you can work on projects with other people. Additionally, you can participate in a robotics competition to test how much knowledge you have of robotics.

5. Monitor Your Progress with Milestones

Set up a learning path with milestones so that you can stay on track with your progress. Make sure that you routinely track your progress so that you can continue learning at a steady rate and eventually move on to more complex topics in robotics.

6. Purchase a Starter Kit

Starter kits often come with tutorials on how to perform some operations with robots, such as making it blink or spin around. They can help you to learn some basics of programming a robot and how to efficiently connect electrical components.

Starter kits are a basic guide to building your own robots with added complexity across each consecutive robot that you make.

7. Learn Computer Science

Computer science is essential in understanding the programming aspect of robotics since robotics relies on loops, conditions and variables that you must connect to individual components of your robots.

Computer science illustrates algorithms that you can use for completing tasks in robotics, but some advanced algorithms may require knowledge in statistics and trigonometry. You can study computer science either for your own education toward a degree in robotics or for a professional robotics career.

8. Share Your Robotics Knowledge

One efficient way to test whether you truly have learned a robotics concept is by trying to teach it to another person. People can learn from you if you teach them well enough, and you can also learn from yourself in the process. You can be someone’s mentor and guide them through the basics of robotics.