Brand
Development
Bringing People Together

Project

Robot Zone01

If you read only this

This is the longest project I have been working on. It has been 18 years that I contribute in many forms to this life-changing Play Experience. I have funded this organization from the table of my kitchen, and it has become one of the most impactful robotics experience in Canada.

I have been touching all these roles in the organisation:

CEO
President Board Member
Vice-President Board Member
Art Director
Graphical Designer
Experience Designer
Event Coordinator

01. The Challenge & Solution

As the popularity of Educational Robotics was growing in late 2000, teachers were asking for opportunities of collaborating on engaging projects with their students. There was a need for creating communities of robotic users fanatics!

In short,

how to bring teacher, students and parents together to share their interrest for robotics plateforms..

02. The Solution

So I funded Robot Zone01, a Not-for-Profit Organization with four mandates related to the advancement of educational robotics in Canada:

Promote technology in education to help retain students;
Support teachers in the integration of robotics by tailoring programs throughout the educational years;
Facilitate and encourage interaction between educational robotics enthusiasts;
Develop and support robotics competitions in Canada.

Check it out if your want

03. My contribution in this project

Conception of yearly challenges

Each year, for the past 18 years, I have developed on average 5 challenges to offer to school (so that is about 100 play experiences). These challenges have always been:

Relevant for classroom and after-class use
Properly differentiated
Fun, engaging, and challenging

I have each year to develop a series of best practices that have become the organization’s “branding”. To reach that:

I have established a structure for the year challenge, so they are easy to understand, engaging, and relevant.
I have established different “concepts of play” to make sure there was a good variety of actions and learning. For example, I have creates labels for our year challenges:
- Non guided driving robot challenge
- Non guided non-driving robot
- Guided challenge
I have also grouped the best “robot game designers” around a table, so each year we have the best inputs and the best ideas. Kids are just in love with our challenges!

Conception ressources for the members of the organisation

I have each year to develop a series of tools to help teachers and teams to implement our challenges in their environment:

Each year, I have created a rule book explaining the “do and don’t” for each challenge. These documents are currently downloaded more than 10 000 a year.
I have also created a set of challenge mats to give a common play surface for each team. I have conceptualized and refine the designs, and I have found materials and printed that are sustainable for school use.