Today felt like a pretty big moment in the Tinkimo journey. For the first time, the Tinkibots left the workshop and spent some time in a primary school with real students actually using them.
It’s strange seeing something that has spent so long being designed, printed, soldered, programmed, broken, fixed and tested on my desk suddenly being used by the people it was originally created for.
They grow up so fast!
Letting go of the rough edges
I was nervous beforehand.
When you’ve built something yourself, you know all of its imperfections. You know the bits of code that need improving, the occasional wobble in the motors and all those little things that you’ve mentally added to the list for the next version.
It was difficult not to focus on those things and wonder what would happen when I put the robots in front of students.
As it turned out, none of them caused any problems.
The students weren’t interested in whether everything was perfect. They wanted to find out what the robots could do.
They experimented, tried things and, most importantly, had fun.
One of my favourite bits of feedback from the day was being told that the Tinkibots were “much better than I expected!”
I’ll take that.
Can we make it moonwalk?
Probably my favourite moment came when the students started talking about making one of the robots moonwalk.
At this point they had no idea that I’d already created a Moonwalk block.
So when they discovered that they could actually make a Tinkibot moonwalk, there was quite a bit of excitement.
It was one of those lovely moments where something I’d added because I thought it would be fun connected with them completely naturally.
I also came away with a feature request.
Apparently, moonwalking isn’t enough. The robot now needs to make a Michael Jackson style “hee hee!” sound while it does it.
I think that one might have to make the backlog.
They want to come back
Perhaps the most encouraging part came towards the end.
The students were already talking about seeing the Tinkibots again and potentially bringing their siblings along next time. We also briefly discussed trying them with some younger students at a later date.
That means a lot.
Tinkimo has never really been about building a robot for the sake of building a robot. The Tinkibots are a starting point.
I want them to be something children can play with, experiment with, take in unexpected directions and use to discover that technology isn’t just something they consume. It’s something they can create with.
Today was the first small opportunity to see whether that idea actually works outside my workshop.
And I think it might.
Milestone one
So I’m calling this Milestone 1.
The first Tinkibot primary school visit. The first time students have had the opportunity to properly play with the robots and show me what they would do with them.
There is still a huge amount to do. In fact, today has probably given me an even longer list of ideas.
But that’s okay.
I also want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has been part of the Tinkimo journey so far. Some people have offered technical advice, some have tested ideas, made introductions, challenged my thinking or opened doors. Others have simply listened to me talk endlessly about little colourful robots and encouraged me to keep going.
You have all helped get Tinkimo to this point.
And there isn’t much time to sit back.
Milestone 2 is rapidly approaching. In just a few weeks the Tinkibots will be heading out again, this time in front of a very different audience.
For today though, I’m going to enjoy this one.
The Tinkibots went to school.
And they want to go back.
