They may only be seven years old, but they can come up with imaginative solutions for how they would “fix” what they don’t like about their city using robotics.

The reason for the 18 students of the first grade of the 1st Experimental Primary School of Thessaloniki (affiliated to AUTH), the only one that participated with two teams (of the 1st and 6th grades) in the final phase of the WRO HELLAS robotics competition, with theme “the city of my dreams».

The seven-year-olds went for a walk in Thessaloniki with their parents, on foot, on skates or by bicycle, and recorded the issues that they believe separate them from “the city of their dreams”: double-parked vehicles, exhaust gas and waste.

Then, as a team, with the help of robotics, they designed a series of mechanisms: underground bins with levers, an underground parking lot with a ramp that goes up and down in a controlled manner, loaded with vehicles thanks to its pulleys and brake, an electric car and a bus with an electric motor , their wheels and gears. Of course, all in …pocket size, but functional. In fact, the initial thought for the bins also included pipes-ducts, which would allow the controlled channeling of the waste even directly from the balcony.

The first grade children participated in the final phase of the WRO HELLAS Robotics competition in Athens, in the OPEN A’-D’ category.

To get there, it took a period of preparation, mainly in terms of team building and three months of systematic preparation, during which the children “passed” through different roles, as their teacher, Iota Koutli, explains to APE-MPE , which deals with educational robotics at an academic level as well, doing a PhD on the subject.

Schoolgirls took on the role of explorers (to locate and study what needed to be designed and built), designers, engineers and physicists, as well as architects.

Afterwards, 16 of the 18 children, who were in Athens, were divided into two groups of eight and enthusiastically presented to the audience the mechanisms they built and their reasoning, also acquiring presentation skills. They even won the award for best presentation in the competition!

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Having worked as a team for so many months and returning from Athens, after this experience, they retained in their daily lives important skills related to group decision-making, respect for the other person’s point of view and space, and active listening. according to Ms. Koutlis.

“I noticed that they are leveraging practices that we used. For example, decision-making techniques, which involve us stating our idea in simple words, then we all vote and the majority decidessays the teacher and adds that, although the children had to stay at school until 3 in the afternoon on some days, to prepare for their participation in the competition, not only did they not declare themselves tired, but they showed undiminished enthusiasm. According to Ms. Koutlis, it is not very common for such young children to participate in robotics competitions, but it is very important that they acquire skills related to the construction of robotic mechanisms, so that they can then more easily move to automation.

“Danae was constantly talking about what they were designing and building at school, the subject monopolized many of our conversations and quickly all our friends had learned details about what she was making and about the important problems that robotics could solve” points out speaking to APE-MPE Eri Toka, mother of one of the first grade children who participated in the competition and adds:

“It was a unique experience for all the children and we all quickly got excited, young and old».

The trip to Athens was also a special experience – he adds – where all the children traveled together as a mission.

“I got the impression that while many of them had never seen Athens before, instead of asking for more rides, they were rehearsing for their presentation, because everyone had their say” he points out, saying that the preparation stage was for Danae the most beautiful and important, as she saw their projects evolve from the level of ideas and their progress became evident.

The sixth grade students of the same school, under the guidance of their teacher, Constantinos Delistavros, participated in the competition with a robotic support device for People with Disabilities (PWDs) with vision problems.

The “large» children of the Group qualified for the final phase of the WRO Educational Robotics competition, in which they won the 7th place in Greece and the special entrepreneurship award.