Amazon Virtual Tours: Inspiring Future Engineers
A couple of weeks ago, Fair Change Learning shared an amazing opportunity for educators to signup their classes for Amazon’s Fulfillment Centre Virtual Tour. As soon as I saw this, I signed up immediately knowing there was going to be some amazing knowledge my students would take away. I mean, it’s Amazon!
My class and I were not disappointed!
I am going to walk you through this awesome tour and some of my student’s moments of inspiration.
The tour began with a brief introduction of some amazing Amazon staff from different locations around the U.S. who were each going to walk us through the different stages in the fulfillment centre. We first entered the inventory section where all the products are stored, then moved onto the packaging station, the shipping labels, and the quality control area, and finally ended with the sorting of packages for delivery. In the inventory stage, it was shocking to see little robots maneuvering back and forth lifting and transporting large pods that hold many products (weighing as much as a cow!). These robots used QR codes embedded on the floor to maneuver safely and efficiently to retrieve items for fulfilling orders.
My students were in awe!
In the packaging stage, boxes were assigned based on the size of the order and just the right amount of tape was dispensed through a computing system. Amazing!
Each stage was well organized for students to activate their thinking through a few multiple-choice questions, some pre-created videos, and then a live walk-through of the robotics and programming components in action. The amount of technology and its efficiency within one fulfillment centre was an eye-opener for us. In each stage of the process, the employees shared important computing terms such as algorithms, QR codes, and explained how they were being.
“I really liked how they showed the step-by-step process with Amazon employees and they had detailed explanations of words we might not know.”
At the end of the tour, there were short videos about some of the people who work for Amazon in programming or robotic fields as well as time for Q&A.
Overall, this virtual tour as a teacher was a great learning opportunity and a way to encourage, motivate and enhance the learning in the classroom concerning programming and robotics.
It opened my eyes to how coding, programming, and robotics may not only exist in Amazon facilities but many areas of our life where we might not realize. This is a large part of our future and it is important to be aware of that and start or continue implementing these experiences in the classroom. They will help enhance 21st- century competencies, computational thinking that they require for the future as well as inspire them to be changemakers for the future.
From this experience, my students stated they felt inspired to learn more about technology in general and for some, specifically robotics.
“The future of technology, I imagine, is going to be insane!”
I highly recommend the Amazon Fulfillment Centre virtual tour and thank Fair Change Learning for sharing this opportunity with many educators.
To learn more about the virtual tours or register your class, visit here.
About the Author:
Manprit Rai
I am a grade 4 teacher from the Peel District School Board. I have been teaching for 10 years now and my passion as an educator is to inspire and provide students with the tools to be changemakers for the future.
