A few years ago, toward the beginning of my journey into robotics, I mentored a team for a local competition. We were on our way to building a Tetrix Prime robot from a kit, when the unimaginable happened—our team’s laptops went missing—and with them, all of our code and design work. While we were no longer able to compete in the local competition, this blow to our team was but a temporary setback.
Shortly after a student on the team came to me asked, “Can we build some real robots? Ones that aren’t toys?” We were building real robots, but I realized they were looking for something a little more practical and relevant to their experience at school, so I asked what they needed help with. That’s when one of the girls piped up. “Can we build a robot that can go outside in the rain and take care of our chickens?” she asked. “I don’t like getting wet!”
At the time I…
