Norwich School pupils headed up to the John Innes Centre earlier this week to investigate how we can use coding to build and program robots to teach us about DNA

The sessions were a mix of presentations and hands-on activity. It started with the introduction of the big robot “DNA Dave” and the biology he illustrates. 

Then pupils then looked at the inner workings – the code that instructs the various working parts. 

Next they followed a coding practical to create strings of LEDs to represent DNA and amino acids. 

Finally they looked at the physical build structure of Dave before wrapping up and explaining the challenge. The pupil then started to build their own robot.