If I render the viewport (View->Viewport Render Animation) I get an MP4 file with the animation as expected. However if I do Render->Render Animation (Ctrl F12) nothing moves I just see the shapes static and not moving, why is this?
Hey ssquidring , I think this is set up for a viewport render.
If you look in the outliner you will see a util collection, this is probably what you are seeing when you CTRL + F12. You can turn off render by clicking the camera icon next to the collection. However the objects you animated have no materials applied, and there is no lighting in the scene, so you still won't see anything.
For your exercise submission you only need a viewport render, and its a lot faster to render.
Adrian is correct.
What we are actually animating in this exercise are the bones, which are using those shapes to override the way they display.
When you "Render", you can't see armature objects, only geometry and particles etc.
So you need to render the viewport to actually see the armature in the output (this will use all the render settings you set).
You don't need to worry about lights because a viewport render will render what you see in the viewport (except for keyfames numbers on any motion paths)
Hope that all makes sense.