Part 1: Build it
Today you build a real autonomous robot from a box of parts and make it drive on its own. The chip, sensors, and battery you wire up are the same kind of parts that keep the harbor's new electric trucks and cranes running. By the end of the day, your robot has a heartbeat and it moves on command.
How do code and hardware come together to make a machine move on its own?
- Meet your kit and name your robot
- Build the chassis, wire the electronics, and pass the power-on test
- Write your first drive code and make it move
- Make your robot drive a short delivery run and film it
The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach sit right next to you, and together they are the busiest port complex in the country. Right now they are trading in their old diesel trucks and cargo machines for electric and hydrogen ones. More than 600 zero-emission vehicles are already working across the harbor, with a goal of a fully zero-emission truck fleet by 2035 and zero-emission cargo-handling equipment by 2030.
On July 13, 2026, the Port of Los Angeles opened a 75 million dollar program to put more battery-electric trucks into service at the harbor. Every one of those trucks runs on the same building blocks you are wiring today.
Every electric truck and electric crane runs on microcontrollers, sensors, and battery systems. Someone local has to build them, test them, and keep them running. That someone works in Wilmington, San Pedro, and Long Beach, and you can start training for it ten minutes from home.
- Los Angeles Harbor College, Wilmington, electronics and computer technology
- LA Trade-Tech, Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Technology, which covers trucks
- Long Beach City College, Advanced Transportation Technology for electric vehicles
These are skilled technician jobs you can start without a four-year degree. The wiring you do today is the first rung.
This is Long Beach Container Terminal, minutes from you and one of the most electric and automated terminals in the world. Electric cranes, battery-powered self-driving carriers, and sensors everywhere. Every port is heading this way, and every machine here needs someone to build and maintain it.
- 1 cyber:bot kit: chassis, 2 servos, breadboard, wheels, hardware bag
- 1 BBC micro:bit V2, battery pack, USB cable
- 5 fresh AA batteries
- 1 small Phillips screwdriver
- 1 Windows laptop per pair, plus a strip of masking tape and a marker
- Pull every part out of your kit and lay it on the table. Do not start building yet.
- Match your parts to the checklist above. If something is missing, raise your hand.
- With your partner, give your robot a name and a one-line personality.
- Write it on a piece of masking tape and stick it to the top of your robot. This robot is yours for all four days.
Before you build it, look at the parts and guess out loud with your partner: which two parts make it move, and which part is the brain?
The first thing every robotics technician does is build the body and prove it works before writing a single line of code. You will follow the official Parallax build guide step by step. Watch the pace, work clean, and keep every screw tight.
Every build and code step this week lives in one place: the Parallax cyber:bot MakeCode Tutorial Series. Keep it open in a tab all week. This page tells you which tutorials to do and when. The tutorials themselves are the steps you follow.
Watch the CYBER.ORG build once, start to finish, before you pick up a screwdriver. Then work the steps below.
- RED wire is positive, BLACK wire is negative. Reversing them can fry a servo.
- Do not install the AA batteries until a facilitator has checked your wiring.
- A blinking red power light means weak batteries. Swap them.
- In the series, do the Get Started with micro:bit and MakeCode tutorial so you can load code onto your board.
- In the series, start the Build Your cyber:bot (Rev C Board) tutorial and follow it through the chassis build.
- Your chassis should be solid with no wobble before you go on.
- Keep following the same tutorial through the electronics and battery install, until your robot is fully assembled.
- Stop before you power on. Raise your hand. A facilitator checks your servo wiring first.
With a green light from your facilitator, install the batteries and run the BLINK test. When the heart shows on your micro:bit, your robot just took its first breath. Pause and celebrate, then move on.
Your robot has a body. Now give it a job: drive itself from the yard to the loading dock and stop, the same simple move a self-driving yard truck makes at the port.
- Your robots are new and come pre-centered, so open Navigation with the cyber:bot in the series and go straight to the drive blocks: forward, backward, turn left, turn right.
- Write a program that drives your robot straight to the tape line on the floor and stops.
- Run it. Did it stop on the line, short, or long? Change one number, run again.
- Jot your two tries on your Port Engineer Log: what you changed and what happened.
Film 15 to 30 seconds of your robot making its delivery run. Scan the code with your phone to open the workshop Padlet, then tap the plus button to post your clip. By Day 4 you will have four clips that show your progress.
In one day you took a box of parts and built a working autonomous robot, then made it drive itself and stop on target. That build-test-fix loop is exactly what a Zero-Emission Fleet Technician does on the harbor's electric trucks every day.
Tell your partner one thing that broke today and how you fixed it. That fix is real engineering.
Tomorrow your robot grows senses so it can stop before it hits something, the same safety tech that keeps automated port equipment from hitting people and cargo. Bring your robot.
You just built a working robot from a box of parts. That is the exact starting skill for keeping the harbor's new electric trucks and equipment running. Here is how to turn today into a real local job.
- Free local career centers help you at no cost. The Long Beach WorkPlace and Pacific Gateway serve Long Beach, Signal Hill, and the LA Harbor.
- Search CalJOBS, the state job board, plus the careers pages of the Port of LA, Port of Long Beach, and the terminals.
- Ask a teacher, counselor, or your TRIO advisor to connect you.
- Put this workshop on your resume. List real skills: wiring a chip to motors, loading code, and troubleshooting a build.
- Use a professional email with your name, and ask a teacher or Woven facilitator to be a reference.
- Apply even if you do not meet every preferred line. Entry level means they will train you.
- Get free help writing your resume at the local career centers listed below.
- Tell the story of a problem you fixed this week. That build, test, fix loop is the whole job.
- Show up early, look sharp, and bring one question about the team.
- Lead with reliability, safety, and eagerness to learn. That is what gets hired.
The Long Beach youth career center helps ages 14 to 30 with resumes, interviews, and training at no cost, and it even runs a Port of Long Beach internship. Ask a Woven facilitator how to get connected.