Case R7: Claw (Vending) Machine

Objective:
To offer hands-on building experience and programming learning opportunities to students. Start by leading them to create a claw machine with plastic building blocks by applying certain programming ideas and coding knowledge. Students are expected to savor the fun and function of coding, and take pleasure in understanding the logic and operation of our daily products.

Description:
The students are firstly encouraged to design and build up the basic parts of a claw machine by using the plastic building blocks. At the second stage, the students will be provided with a microcontroller board and then proceed with some basic knowledge of coding to make certain parts of their claw machine programmable.

A series of coding learning workshops will be organised, aiming at inspiring the students to apply some key coding ideas to their claw machine. For example, the workshops will touch on various interesting coding elements that are commonly applied to the construction of a claw machine, like motor functions, touch sensors, and so on. In this way, students are expected to design, build, program, and adjust a claw machine. In this process, students are also expected to have a hands-on experience of the importance of coding technology in our daily life.