Robo Penguin!

Building and Coding the Penguin Robot

This week, your young roboticist built a colorful penguin robot and began exploring how to bring it to life with code! They discovered how robots can display images, make sounds, move around, and respond to timers.

A Quick Science Connection

Before building, students discussed an interesting fact: batteries don’t like extreme cold! When a battery gets very cold, it can slow down or even get damaged if it tries to warm up too quickly. This is something engineers think about when designing robots for cold places, just like the icy home of a real penguin.

What Your Child Built and Coded

Students followed build instructions to create a penguin robot using colorful LEGO bricks, motors, and the smart hub. Then they practiced programming it with several different coding blocks:

• Display Images: They programmed the robot’s screen to show images like a polar bear or beach scene.
• Play Sounds: They added sound effects like ocean waves to make their penguin more lifelike.
• Control Movement: They experimented with making the penguin waddle by setting movement speed and wheel rotations.
• Use Timers: They discovered how to make the robot stop moving after a certain number of seconds and change the power button light color.

Three Fun Challenges

After the basic build, students tackled three different challenges:

1. Warning Code Challenge: Add code to make something happen when you warn the penguin (experimenting with sensor responses).
2. Wing-Flap Challenge: This was a building AND coding challenge! Students modified their robot’s physical design to add flapping wings instead of just waddling.
3. Talking Penguin Challenge: Make the penguin “talk” by displaying text on the screen.

What Your Child Explored

Through this hands-on project, your child began discovering:

• How code controls what robots display, sound like, and how they move
• How timers work in programming (making things happen after a certain amount of time)
• How changing the physical build requires changing the code too
• How to experiment with different values (speed, time, rotations) to see what works
• How all the robot’s parts (motors, lights, screen, speakers) work together

Why This Matters

This lesson helps kids begin to understand how the devices they use every day actually work. Phones, tablets, and games all use similar concepts: displaying images, playing sounds, responding to timers, and reacting to what users do. By building and programming their own robot, they’re starting to see how technology comes to life through code.

Questions about your child’s penguin project? Reach out to us at help.stjohns@kidzart.com or call 904-287-8603.