Design-led Projects Spatial Design About

Robot Cards

Pick a robot. Any robot.

Robot Cards brings together data and computer science, creative design and the weird and wonderful world of robotics. Together, we wanted to find a playful way for children to get curious about data, turning something abstract into something they could hold in their hands, sort, compare and investigate for themselves.

Visiting the National Robotarium informed our approach, opening up the sheer variety of robots and what they can do. To create the visual world for our robots, Elspeth took inspiration from the warmth and friendliness of Pepper, one of the robots we met there, developing a playful and approachable look for the cards.

Drawing on her background in computer science, Antonia worked with Elspeth's designs to develop and program a way of generating 160 different robot cards, each with its own name, characteristics, purpose and stats, creating a rich set of data for children to investigate.

Put the cards in a classroom and you immediately see the reaction. Children start sorting the robots by height, speed, cost or function, looking for patterns and relationships, or inventing completely new ways of grouping them. The card pack includes different activities and possibilities, but there isn't one route through it. Part of the fun is deciding what to look for and seeing what you discover.

And from there, children can begin imagining robots of their own.

Thank you to P5 at Lorne Primary School for playtesting, and for these amazing robot designs.