Our mission
Developing simple and accessible robotic solution and teaching tools for STEAM education worldwide.
Do not buy another plastic toy. Get creative with what you have on hand.
We create:
- Robot designs and plans
- User manuals and tutorials
- Teacher training courses and lessons plans
Who are cardboard robots for?
Cardboard robots are designed to be made at school with students aged from 10 years old and up.
Our goal is to make cardboard designs as useful as possible for teachers and educators worldwide. We keep our designs basic so students can build them within limited time frame at school. We propose to use only easily accessible, free (cardboard) when possible, or reasonably cheap (Micro:Bit) materials and components that are available worldwide.
Sustainability is a welcomed side-effect of this approach. Our robot designs contain mostly recycled and recyclable materials and connecting elements are reusable (nuts and bolts and rubber bands).
Design principles
Simplicity
Cardboard robots are designed for school use thus we always put function over form and try to make the constructions as simple as possible. We are familiar with time constraints of regular school lesson and what you can actually achieve with teenage students in short time.
Accesibility
Cordboard robots is not another STEAM robotics kit. We design free robotic plans and good practices how to use it at school. We propose only tools that are available and easy to source worldwide.
Since for any robot you need a minimal set of electronic components you have to source yourself we try to use as little of them as possible and only components that are widely available worldwide such as BBC Micro:Bit and regular servo motors.
Opennes
One of the greatest advantages of working with cardboard is a fact that you can modify it any way you want. Use our designs to jumpstart your students creativity and encourage them to find their own way. Engineering type students can work on mechanical problems, storytellers can personalise their robots appearance with any crafty material.
Why cardboard?
Cardboard is a fantastic construction material, hugely underestimated and undervalued as in our everyday life we mostly see it as short living packaging to quickly land in trash.
- It is virtually FREE (if you save it from being thrown to trash) and easily available worldwide
- It opens your imagination – as soon as you get used to cardboard`s properties and learn to model it, your creativity starts to sparkle with construction ideas and new ways to express your visual taste
- You can build small and big – no other construction system will give you this – LEGO is gorgeous but try to build build a two meter tall castle out of it. With cardboard you can build small figures or HUGE statues, however you want
Why BBC Micro:Bit?
Since building robots requires some kind of programmable controller we had to choose one that fits our principles:
- Is easy to use and school friendly
- Has basic robotics capabilities – some sensors and driving motors
- Is affordable and available worldwide
The decision was in fact quite easy as BBC Micro:Bit board fits our guidelines perfectly and over last few years had grown very strong educational community.
Who made it?
CARDBOARD ROBOTS idea was created by Maciej Wojnicki founder and creator of LOFI Robot