DiscoG X Workshop 10: Train It. Test It. Win!
- Jul 18
- 4 min read
Workshop 10 was the last of our ten DiscoG X workshops, and it landed on the best possible day for it. The students had all finally finished school for the summer just the day before, and they arrived in full holiday mode, ready for something fast, loud and fun.
Enter the AlphAI robot.
Train It. Test It. Win! was Workshop 10 / 10. You can see the full series here.
The mission
In Workshop 7, students trained an AI-powered vehicle to navigate a track using a simulation on screen. This time, when we said "Train it. Test it." they were able to do so with the real robots!
They took that same supervised learning process and put it to the test for real. Students trained their AlphAI robot in simulation, then raced the physical robot around a real track to see how well the training held up.
How the robot learns
The AlphAI robot was running on Supervised Learning, a type of Machine Learning where the AI learns by copying decisions we show it, rather than being programmed with fixed rules.
Students trained their robot by demonstrating what to do in different situations, for example turning right whenever it sensed a wall, building up a set of examples for it to learn from.
Underneath, the robot was using an algorithm called KNN, or k-nearest neighbour. KNN works by following whatever action was shown most often in similar situations. If a robot was trained to turn right at a wall 7/10 times, KNN will tell it to turn right the next time it meets the wall again.
Once trained, students switched their robot into autonomous mode. From there it ran on the input, process, output cycle: its sensors read the track (input), the AI decided what to do based on its training (process), and the robot turned, stopped or drove forward accordingly (output), all without further help from its student.
The tournament
With 18 students taking part, it was time for a knockout tournament. Six rounds of three robots raced head to head, with the winner of each round moving on to one of two semi-final races. The two semi-final winners then raced each other for the title.
The track was a simple loop, and each race was timed at two minutes. Whichever robot made it furthest around the track before time ran out was the winner.
Standout moments
The tournament threw up some brilliantly chaotic racing. In one early round, a robot got stuck on the leg of the middle wall and still won, because both of its competitors were circling each other in confusion, with one even backing up behind the start line.
Another round saw all three robots spinning left and right instead of driving forward. The winner was simply the first robot to make it over the start line.
The final was the best of all. The two semi-final winners went head to head, and the eventual winner got stuck on the exact same wall that had caught another robot earlier in the day, driven by a different student. But this robot had been trained to escape!
When the two-minute timer ran out, she was declared the winner for getting furthest around the track. We'd left the robots running after the races ended, and hers was the only one that went on to complete the full loop, proving she really was the best trainer of the day!
Trophies and a fitting finale
We 3D printed two small trophies for the first and second place. It was a fun way to end the ten weeks of DiscoG X. Ten weeks, ten workshops, ten years of DiscoG.
Thank you to every student who has been a part of this series in the build up to our 10th anniversary.
We are so proud of everything achieved across all ten workshops, and all of the ideas, collaborations, discussions and projects that came out of it.
What's next
Our official 10th anniversary celebration is next. Come and say hello next Saturday 25th July, any time from 11am to 4pm, and see each of these workshops for yourself.
We'll also be demoing other student projects and showcasing the winners of our Student Voices blog competition.
Join us this summer
DiscoG X is a short series of workshops for Years 5 to 9, but DiscoG Coding Academy runs weekly term-time classes during the academic year as well as Summer Holiday Bootcamps for students in Years 1 to 13.
Whatever stage your child is at, there is a place for them here.
Summer Bootcamps are intensive and hands-on, with Specialised Courses built around the same approach you've seen in this post. Spaces fill up quickly.
Not able to make summer? Register your interest for September term-time classes to be one of the first to hear when spaces open.
Any questions? Get in touch!
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