Nexgen STEM School

I can't tell you how much effort it takes to design your own robot - and that's with help from microcontrollers and motor drivers that you don't have to design...and AI tools to code everything for you.

Its still a huge effort...

Most stick with the classic Arduino hobby robot (I deliberately used the wheels and 6v TT motors).
Some (in fact many) resort to off the shelf robots

But a decent educational robot is a different beast altogether. Not a toy that just needs batteries and an 'on' switch or hideous thing with a monstrous microcontroller, wires everywhere and terrible AA batteries.

And that's precisely why it is worth doing!

Nexgen Zippy is being rolled out as an 8 session build as of now. About 100x better than the average Arduino robot car. At least that in fact.

- Build it from scratch
- Customize the 3D model and print it yourself
- Code it (customise the code if you are confident enough)
- Write you own simpler code!
- Control autonomously or from your mobile phone
- Bonus: Control from our own joystick or a bluetooth gamecontroller

Nexgen Zippy in Rhino

New toy! My desk is such a mess

If you think your pet (clawd)bot is going to blackmail you then just take a deep breath and just know that it probably isn't - especially if you treat it right 😆.
I just checked with Alfred what he would do and I don't think he is planning to control my life just yet (maybe he does already given that I am telling you about my frequent interactions with an AI bot ).

From the Nexgen Blog - Part 2 on Learning to Code in the Dark Ages.....

Learning to Code before and during the AI Revolution - Part 2 - From Craft to Career — Nexgen STEM School — Nexgen STEM School As computing moved from hobby to profession, learning shifted again. Universities, commercial software, and the early web reshaped how developers were trained and how careers were built. This part follows the transition from bedroom coding to professional life, examining how skills were valued, why

https://www.instructables.com/Fixing-Breadboards-for-Wide-Microcontrollers-Pico-/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email

They say that insanity is next to genius. I reckon this project is abit of both.

Kudos to the creator: https://www.instructables.com/member/lhm0/

Fixing Breadboards for Wide Microcontrollers – Pico & ESP32 Edition Fixing Breadboards for Wide Microcontrollers – Pico & ESP32 Edition: Many modern microcontroller boards such as the Raspberry Pi Pico or ESP32 development boards are too wide for standard breadboards. When plugged directly into a regular breadboard, they cover multiple contact points — with the ...

I love doing workshops for local communities. I do a regular one at Canada Bay - The Learning Space. Today we had a full house for the soldering workshop. Most people had never soldered before and we had a huge span of ages. This is where you find out how robust your teaching ability is!! The item being soldered was a Christmas tree - actually quite a complex project - however everyone confidently put their creativity into action building together and helping each other. Why can't learning always be like this? It makes things so easy, it's almost embaressing to get paid for doing it !!

The Kambala Rose Bay STEM Club wrapped up their big project this week: a fully working Nexgen Weather Station that they built completely from scratch.

This build wasn’t a shortcut or a kit-in-a-box. Students used real skills end to end: prepping parts, soldering, modelling and measuring the case, customising their designs, wiring the electronics, coding the interface, and troubleshooting both the circuits and the software.

Each station runs on an ESP32 pulling live weather data from any city, combined with a BME280 sensor to read the local temperature, pressure, and humidity. And the best part was thatevery student went home with a working device they built themselves.

Projects like this show what students can do when they have proper tools, time to think, and the chance to build something meaningful, engaging, fun and NOT a disaster!

What STEM projects are happening at your school? Always keen to swap ideas.

Future Ready STEM skills interactive workshop with teachers from international schools in Singapore last week!

Goodbye Nexgen Codecamp - you will never be used again!

Hello Nexgen STEM School ! Teaching 'actual' skills and not just AI prompts (which take 5 minutes to learn).