In the classroom of a new robotics academy a dinosaur walks, a spider talks, drones play football and the future feels close enough to touch.
At Underwood’s newly opened XROBOT Academy, a mix of innovation and ambition is putting the tools of tomorrow into the hands of Logan’s younger generations.
Owner Alex Li said: “The possibilities are endless for how it can help people in their everyday lives”.
Machines that mirror human movement offer a glimpse of the possibilities he imagines — from giving people with disability greater independence to sending robots into dangerous situations so workers can return home safely.
“We want to guide our student to make something different, to change the world,” Mr Li said.
The academy opened in September after about 18 months of preparation, transforming a space at 170 North Road into a workshop for budding engineers aged seven to 18.
“They can come here and build their own robots and learn some knowledge like mechanical design, electronics, circuit design and also 3D modelling, 3D printing,” Mr Li said.
“We need to not only build the hardware, also we need to write the code to control all the hardware.”
Mr Li said he held master’s degrees in mechanical engineering and information technology and systems, and had worked in mechanical and software engineering.
“Robotics is a really comprehensive subject. It contains mechanical design, mechanic theory, electronics, circuit design,” he said.
He believes students learn best by putting that knowledge into practice.
“The student need to finish some boring assignment. I think that’s really a waste of time. They need to do some hands-on project,” he said.
The academy’s machines offer plenty of opportunities.
“We can give some command to the spider. It can have some speech recognition,” Mr Li said.
There is also a human-like head combining moving facial features, cameras and AI conversation, while a robotic dinosaur walks through the academy.
For children, another major attraction is drone soccer.
“They really love it,” Mr Li said.
Flying protected drones through goals inside a netted arena puts coordination, control and piloting skills to the test.
Mr Li hopes some students will eventually become engineers working in the lab themselves.
But that future begins with one important rule: learn to write code before asking AI to do it for you.
“I will ask them to write the computer language like Python, C++, one letter by one letter, one sentence by one sentence,” Mr Li said.
“I don’t allow them to use AI to generate the code by themselves.”
Once students can code confidently, AI tools can be used — provided they understand and check the result.
“Once they generate some code by the AI, they need to review the code by themselves,” he said.
“If we just put something generated by AI into the production, that will be disaster.”
For all the walking dinosaurs, flying drones and mechanical marvels, Mr Li said the final responsibility remains human.
“The last step, the review must be done by human beings,” he said.
“That’s why our academy exists.”
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