Originally published May 22, 2024 — Updated for 2025
As the school year winds down, it’s time to celebrate your students’ creativity, collaboration, and all the STEM skills they’ve gained. Whether you’re looking for high-energy challenges, artistic expression, or meaningful reflection, these robotics activities are the perfect way to end the year on a high note.
From community carnivals to TikTok-inspired choreography, these teacher-tested ideas will have your students smiling all the way to summer. Check out our top 10 end-of-year robotics activities, inspired by real educators like you!
1. Glow Up Your Classroom with a Finch Robot Glow Party
Take a cue from educator Lindsay Munoz and transform your classroom into a glowing celebration! Use blacklights and LED-equipped Finch Robots to create a robotics dance floor. Students can program light shows, dance routines, or even code a light-up conga line.
2. Build a Mini Fingerboard Park with Hummingbird
Turn a classic summer pastime into a STEM challenge! Inspired by Jessica Meacham’s classroom, students can use Hummingbird Kits to design interactive fingerboard skate parks with sensors, motors, and lots of imagination.
3. Code a Viral Dance Challenge
Bring TikTok trends into your robotics lab! Let students choose a trending dance and choreograph their Finch Robots to match. This creative coding challenge blends rhythm, timing, and teamwork.
4. Host an End-of-Year Robotics Arcade
Channel your students’ game design skills by throwing a school-wide arcade using Hummingbird-powered games like Tech-Girls and Lighthouse Studio. What a great way to showcase student innovation—and it’s always a hit!
5. Hold a Battle Bots Showdown
Cap off your robotics curriculum with a friendly competition! Educator Craig Dunlap runs a Battle Bots tournament where students design, build, and program their bots to face off in an arena. It’s hands-on problem-solving at its most exciting.
6. Celebrate Teamwork with Collaborative Challenges
Reflect on the social-emotional learning your students have gained with some teamwork-based robotics challenges. Whether they’re coding in pairs or solving puzzles as a team, it’s a great way to highlight how far they’ve come.
7. Race into Summer with Robot Rovers
Get students moving with a fast-paced Robot Rover race! Design a course, decorate your rovers, and let the end-of-year excitement power your students’ final builds.
8. Turn a Novel Study into a Robotics Adventure
Bring literature to life with robotics! Take inspiration from Marianne Green’s Maze Runner-themed robot maze, where students build and program robots to navigate plot-inspired challenges. It’s a creative way to combine ELA and STEM.
9. Build a Giant Rube Goldberg Machine
Showcase your students’ design thinking and perseverance by creating a large-scale robotic Rube Goldberg Machine. Each student (or team) codes one segment, and together, they trigger a chain reaction that ends the school year with a bang!
10. Throw a Parade of Favorite Memories
Let students reflect on their favorite moments of the year with a robot parade! Program Finch Robots to pull tiny floats or build Box Rover floats with Hummingbird Kits. Each float can represent a memory, project, or highlight from the year.
Want to Try These Activities in Your Classroom?
Ready to bring one (or all!) of these ideas to life? You can request a free 30-day demo of any BirdBrain robot—we’ll even cover shipping. It’s a great way to test these hands-on experiences with your students before the school year ends.
Let the creativity, coding, and celebration begin!