Part 4: Smart and Compete
This is it. You built your robot, gave it senses, and connected it to others. Today you make it smart by training a small AI, then put the whole week together in a Port mission tournament. By the end you will have done more real engineering than most adults ever will.
How does a machine learn to recognize something on its own?
- Train a small AI to recognize a movement
- Add a smart feature to your robot
- Take on a Port mission and compete in the tournament
- Show your work and your week
The containers that leave our harbor travel straight to giant warehouses across Southern California, many of them an hour inland. The biggest ones run on fleets of robots guided by AI. Amazon alone runs more than 750,000 mobile robots in its buildings. Those robots move, sort, and pack, and they work right alongside people.
These warehouses use AI to decide where every robot goes so the whole fleet stays fast and safe. Today you train your own small AI. Same idea, smaller scale.
The person who sets up, runs, and fixes the robots and the AI is a Warehouse Automation Specialist. It is one of the fastest-growing jobs in the region the harbor feeds.
- Los Angeles Harbor College, Wilmington, electronics and computer technology
- LA Trade-Tech, automation and robotics pathways
- Long Beach City College, mechatronics and robotics
These are skilled, growing jobs you can start without a four-year degree.
Meet the robots, and the people who work with them, inside an automated warehouse. The containers that leave our harbor end up in buildings like these. Someone runs the robots and the AI, and that someone can be you.
AI is not magic. You teach it by giving it examples. Today you show your micro:bit a few movements over and over until it learns to tell them apart, using its built-in motion sensor.
AI runs in a free micro:bit tool called micro:bit CreateAI. The step-by-step guide is on the micro:bit CreateAI user guide. It works with the same MakeCode you have used all week.
- Open micro:bit CreateAI and connect your micro:bit. Pick three clear movements, for example wave, clap, and shake.
- Record several samples of each. The more examples you give, the smarter it gets.
- Train the model, then test it. Does it tell your moves apart?
- If it gets confused, add more samples or make your moves more different. That is how real AI is improved: better data.
Your micro:bit now recognizes movements it was never directly programmed for. It learned from your data. That is machine learning.
Now add one smart feature to your robot. You have four days of tools to choose from. Pick one and make it work.
- Use your trained AI motion to start or trigger your robot
- Send a radio command from Day 3 to start or stop it
- Shake to start, or press a button to switch modes
- Use a whisker or infrared trigger from the sensing days
- In MakeCode, add your one feature to your robot's code. Keep the rest working.
- Flash, test, and fix. Get it reliable before the tournament.
Choose one mission with your partner. Do not try to do all three. The teams that win are the ones who scope tight and test a lot.
Push a container, a small block, along a taped lane into the goal zone. Fastest clean delivery wins.
Navigate to a target, then signal that you are done with a radio message or an icon on the micro:bit.
Head to head. Push the other robot out of the ring before it pushes you out. Pure fun.
- Pick your mission and tell your facilitator. Once you choose, no swap.
- Sketch your plan: which sensors and which smart feature will you use?
- Take it to the arena and run trial after trial. Change one thing at a time.
Everyone runs. Trophies go to the top of each mission and to the Hard Problem of the Week, the best story of something that broke and how a team fixed it.
- When your team is called, run your official mission run. Hands behind your back once it starts.
- Cheer for the other teams. Watch what the winning robots do differently.
In 30 seconds, tell the room:
- Our robot's job was to...
- One problem we solved was...
- This connects to a real harbor job because...
Film your tournament run plus a 10 second testimonial: the hardest problem your team solved this week and how you fixed it. Scan the code to post it. That is your fourth clip and your finished portfolio.
Look at what you did. You built a robot from parts, gave it a sense of touch, connected it to a network, trained it with AI, and competed with it. That is the full arc of a modern robotics and IoT job, and you ran every step yourself.
Everything you used this week is free online. The Parallax cyber:bot series has more challenges, and micro:bit CreateAI has more AI projects. Build something at home and keep the streak going.
This week you built a robot, gave it senses, connected it, and trained it with AI. That full stack is exactly what automation specialists do. Here is how to turn four days 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: integrating sensors and code, training a simple AI model, and working alongside robots.
- 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.
- Your four Padlet clips are a portfolio. Show them, they prove you can build.
- 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.