Bristlebots and other friends. A progression of Epistemic insight workshops using small things to ask big questions

Small, handmade and inexpensive robots can help students across a range of ages unpack and explore big questions around the nature of life, curiosity and creativity. This is an introduction to a series of workshops where students learn how to frame and investigate different types of questions including big questions that bridge science, religion, computing and the wider humanities.

The first workshop, aimed at upper KS2 looks at the ideas of what we mean by life and to be alive.

The second workshop builds on this and asks, ‘can a robot have a sense of curiosity?’ What would a robot need to have a sense of curiosity, what do we need across a range of subject domains.

The third workshop takes this further and helps KS3/4 students to ask questions about what it means to be creative, would a robot make a good friend and our we, ourselves, programmed by the society that we grow up in?

The workshops are a part of wider activities delivered across primary, secondary, ITE and outreach activities by the LASAR team accompanied by research informing development of epistemic insight in children and young people and equipping them with curiosity, analytical and critical skills to understand current global problems and answer Big Questions.