Review: Introduction to Robotics and Automation

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My son has an enjoyment of robotics, he’s taken a few courses over the years.  Last year he was fortunate enough to be able to an engineering course at a local business and was able to build his own robot.  This was almost the best thing ever. 🙂

This year I was looking at course from Innovator’s Tribe and offered to do a review in exchange for the course.  Mr. K agreed!  WOOT WOOT!  I want to tell you how much my lad has been enjoying this course.

The course: Introduction to Robotics and Automation.

Course Description

This exciting course introduces students to the modern world of robotics.  Using interactive lessons and exciting hands-on activities, students will learn how to design, build and program a virtual robot.

30 hours of learning material right at your fingertips. Easy login, Sidebar for lesson placement, units of study and encouragement to try something more. 

What you Get

A self-paced, self-contained, completely on-line (except for hands-on projects) that your student can do completely on their own.

Occasionally you will be directed to a video outside of the course.  Videos such as the one below.  One of the things I like about these referrals is that they open the door to viewing other videos on robotics.  My son would often tell me the things he was learning about.

The layout of each lesson is really obvious.   This is on the things my son really liked.  He knew what kind of lesson it was going to be just by checking the sidebar.  Lesson variations are: Multimedia, quiz, text, and video.  Activities are clearly labeled. 

The page is laid out in such a way that you can see where you are in the lesson by checking the sidebar, while your lesson plays on the mainscreen. 

Since this is a self-paced course, my son wanted to do all the book learning first.  This isn’t unusual for him.  He likes to learn the material well before trying it out in real life.   At this point he has completed all the “Book-learning” that has been created (there is more to come).  

Over the next three or four weeks he hopes to complete the hammer-bot and water clock.  He is hoping we can find some Arduino to work with.  He says it is really interesting and he wants to do it all himself.  So I have a project to complete.. FIND  SOME!

Our Thoughts

From my son: I found the course fun.  It was enjoyable. I learned names for robotic components which I really liked.  Knowing this kind of information  is great.   I would happily take another Mr. K class because he is good at explaining things and making them interesting. How the lessons are done with the different slides is good.  And how they have videos in the slides.  The web-page isn’t complicated, it’s easy to use. 

From Me: When they say this is a self-directed course, it’s exactly that.  My son would say “I’m doing innovators!”  And off he’d go.  If I asked him what he learned about (sometimes 15 minutes later, sometimes an hour later) he’d tell me, sometimes prefaced with “I’m sorry, I got interested in learning so I was watching other videos”. 

Do we recommend this course?  Definitely.   Just like the first course we took from them called Thinking Like An Engineer.  Well taught courses that engage the learner in a variety of formats to work with all learning styles.  Great teacher too!

Introduction to Robotics and Automation.
Innovator's Tribe.
Mr. Kroeplin (teacher)
Grades 5-9
On-line
Self-directed, robotics, automation,