As technologies develop rapidly, the experiences that students gain outside of school are also changing rapidly. In order to develop a modern, student-centered education system that effectively shapes students’ knowledge, it is important to understand the experiences that students bring with them and the foundations on which teachers can build when delivering lessons. This study explores the preconceptions that 10–15-year-old students have about robot control. To obtain relevant data, we designed an electronic questionnaire divided into three sections. We collected responses from over 200 students at three different schools. Our analysis focused on three key open-ended questions from the first section of the questionnaire. The responses were evaluated using qualitative methods and the ESRA model, which considers the relationships between the environment, sensors, the program and actuators. Twelve different models of student thinking were identified, with six occurring most frequently, which we are mentioning in this paper. Many students described robots as devices that perform isolated actions, without referencing control mechanisms. Others attributed decision-making to sensors rather than the program, or viewed robot behavior as a fixed sequence of tasks. Only a minority demonstrated a partial understanding of the interaction between system components, although even these explanations were typically incomplete. The findings reveal that there is a tendency towards fragmented or incorrect conceptions, which highlights the need to address intuitive but inaccurate ideas in robotics education.