iRobot

About

This workshop asks and answers the question ‘What is artificial intelligence?’. Machines can do the most clever things, from beating humans at chess to flying planes and producing works of art. But machines carry these activities out by following computer programs. Programs written by humans. The machines are simply following the rules. So then where does the intelligence lie?

Through an exploration of a range of unplugged activities, pupils discuss the issues and consider what we understand by human intelligence in order to explore the implications of artificial intelligence. 

This workshop is based upon the work of Paul Curzon, Peter McOwen and Jonathan Black from Queen Mary, University of London and the original work can be found on the Computer Science For Fun (CS4FN) website.  From machine learning with sweets to emotional robots, students rate the intelligence of objects to identify intelligent behaviours. They then move onto programming a Lego Mindstorms EV3 robot to mimic these intelligent behaviours before revisiting the original question.

If you have any questions about the workshop, please get in touch with the team: dsh@ukie.org.uk

Guidance for teachers

Suitable for: Key stage 2 (KS2), key stage 3 (KS3), key stage 4 (KS4)

Our resources are created with you and your students in mind. Not only are they outside-the-box, creative and brain-boosting fun, but we always ensure our content stays relevant. Our network of academic masterminds and video games practitioners enable us to keep delivering free content that is aligned to the UK computing curriculum and that is relevant to current industry best practice. We think you're going to love our play-based approach to Computer Science. We've even got the evidence to prove it. 

Download your lesson resources at the bottom of the page.