Robots at HMA

April at HMA saw the launch of our exciting new robotics programming – thanks to the initiative and drive of our students and faculty and to generous funding from Dassault Systèmes US Foundation.

So many of our great stories center on student leadership and community resilience. In November, when we moved to remote learning due to the conflict in the north, a group of enterprising students started a programming club—over Telegram—to learn Python. Eventually a particularly committed subset formed the HMA Tech Team.

Also during the period of remote learning, HMA faculty who had temporarily relocated to the United States took advantage of their unexpected circumstances to purchase and test a variety of hardware prototypes, with a focus on adaptability for different ages, ability to integrate parts with existing HMA 3D printing capabilities, ease-of-use and compatibility with likely coding languages.

The results? A few weeks ago, the HMA Tech Team built two MakerBot Neo robots programmed with Python code that runs on student iPads. As you can see in the video below—the robots are here!

This hands-on experience forms the foundation for innovative student designs in the future. Building on what they have learned, next steps will involve students using 3D printing technology to produce their own components for when the time comes. The future is here, and the enterprising young innovators at HMA will lead the way!