Does your robot have a name? What is its personality?
What journey has your robot been on? Where is it going?
These were some of the questions we asked the elementary and middle schoolers participating in a Junior Botball robotics camp this summer. The campers were surprised by our questions. They had been so intent all week on getting gears to mesh properly and software commands debugged, that they hadn’t thought about naming their robots at all. But the metal, plastic and rubber contraptions were soon given monikers and endowed with personalities that “keep going” and “want to get the job done.”
Warming up to the idea of creating music to tell their robots’ stories, the campers were soon working on percussion riffs. They explored the different sounds made by the Rhythm Window. We talked about how the beat establishes a personality–steady as clockwork or cautious and exploratory. If fast, the tempo conveys urgency. If slow, the mood might feel deliberate or even dangerous.
When they were satisfied with their beats, the campers tackled the next layer, melody. One camper had designed a dancing robot that cycled between twirling and moving back and forth. While the movements were repetitive, the music was anything but. The beat was spiky and the tune careened chaotically, triggering much joyful head bopping by the composer.
Once melody-making was well under way, we introduced the Sketch Window and discussed how the campers could assemble their melodies and rhythmic motifs into a larger story–much the way they had taken a pile of loose parts and snapped them together to construct their robots. Each robot was programmed to go through specified movements. The more advanced robots navigated through a maze, picking up balls, blocks, and “moon rocks” along the way and delivering them to the moon lander. The campers needed to think about their robots’ stories. How does it start? What happens in the middle? Are there moments of tension, for example when a robot is trying to carry out a tricky task? How does it end? In triumph or disappointment?
For the final layer, we introduced the harmony settings and Harmony Line, and encouraged the campers to try listening to their pieces in the None, General, and Classical harmony modes. Did they like one more than another? Soon the campers were oohing and exclaiming, visibly excited to realize Hyperscore had more powers for them to explore.
By the end of our three-hour workshop, each camper had completed an original composition for their robot. The final assignment was to edit videos of their robots and layer in the audio soundtrack, which they downloaded from Hyperscore as MP3 files. We look forward to seeing the videos soon on YouTube!
Recipe for success
The camp ran smoothly because the campers’ Hyperscore accounts had been set up in advance. We had also trained a group of high-school student mentors in Hyperscore ahead of time. The camp director had set up the campers’ daily routines in a way that fit their ebbing and flowing levels of energy and focus. The campers themselves had some experience with computers and algorithmic thinking, so it was easy for them to learn the interface and grasp the basic ideas behind motific composing.
What Hyperscore added to the robotics camp was a way for the campers and mentors — a dozen high-energy elementary, middle and high school kids — an opportunity to reflect on and express the emotions and ideas that were until then an undiscussed, unexplored dimension to their experience. They were all eager to participate and quickly became focused and engrossed in the composing activity.
We hope that our workshop awakened the campers to new facets of their own creative potential. One camper in particular made an impression on us. When he was working on his rhythm motifs, he kept frowning and shaking his head. It was the start of something but he wasn’t satisfied. He continued to work with focus and intention and composed a piece that had a ear-worm of a theme and an impressive build that effectively captured the robot’s drama. A composer is born!
We are grateful to camp director Elaine Griggs and the Junior BotBall Summer Camp through CS4Youth in Pembroke, MA. Thank you for welcoming us and giving us this wonderful opportunity to work with you.