Roborally, teaching kids to program

As you all know we like to bring board games into our homeschool lessons.  In this particular instance Roborally* helps with learning a bit of programming.

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What is the goal of Roborally?

You and a bunch of friends got together and made some robots, they’re all quite unique in look and character (and the game has amusing descriptions for each one).  Then you designed a horrible death trap and said, “Whoever gets their robot across the death trap first claims the glory.”

It’s not a complicated game.

It is however hard.

How do you play Roborally?

Your robot and all other robots start at the same starting point, and you the programmer put in 5 moves your robot will do each turn.

Sounds simple, right?

Oh no, not all.  That’s where the death trap board comes into play.

On the board are conveyors that will move your robot.  Smashers that smash your robot.  And lasers, because what would a game with robots be without lasers, that will destroy your robot.

So, you think your robot is going to move forward 3 and then turn to the right and move forward 2 more thus avoiding the terrible pit trap where he falls to his doom.  It’s not fiery because no lasers.

But, when you were programming, you forgot to account for the conveyor that turned the direction your robot was going and instead sent him into a fiery doom of lasers.  It was quite scary.  And you are starting over.

Tips for playing Roborally with kids

Roborally has many different boards you can play with.  They range in difficulty from incredibly hard “Why did I think this was fun?” to “Hey I think I got the hang of this.”  So if you’re playing Roborally with kids here’s my quick tips.

1. Pick an easy board.  All boards have stuff that move your robots, pick one that has fewer things.  We found limiting conveyors to be very helpful with my kids.
2. Add in several save points.  Roborally has “save points” where if your robot reaches it but is killed later it can respawn there.  If there are several of these possible, it gives them hope they aren’t starting all over.
3. Set a time limit.  We set a time limit for our game, and gave the win to the kids whose robot was the closest at the end.

What does this have to do with space exploration?

Quite a lot actually.  Most of our exploration right now is done by robots, and programmers are the driving force behind this.

More about Roborally

Like most popular board games there are several expansions you can play with for this game.  When I met Jeff he had 2 or 3 expansions.  Unfortunately it looks like these are mostly out of print, so if you can find them at used book stores and the like give them a try.

If Roborally intrigues you, but you’re unsure of the price, check out Robot Turtles Game, which I’ve heard is a similar game, but a little less intimidating.

Now go check out the rest of the Space Exploration Unit.  I ended up finding my pictures of crossing the Oobleck ocean, so I’ll write that one up soon as well.