Skip to main content

Junkbots: Move the robot

3 MINUTE READ

Junkbots session 1: Move the robot

What is the Junkbots project

The Junkbots project has been running for a number of years as an initiative to bring sustainability, computing and engineering together by building bots out of junk; details of the project can be found at. https://junkbots.blogspot.com/ . Junkbots is an extension of the Research into the teaching problem-solving going on at the University of Northampton please feel to visit https://computingnorthampton.blogspot.com/2019/01/problem-solving-research-outputs-and.html for more details.

What are we going to do?

Play with a Scratch robot on the screen! Guess what the routine does. Run the routine see if it does as we guessed. Consider what it did and if it is different to what we thought it was going to do. Change the routine a little bit to do another task.

Activity 1: What blocks are we using?

This means when the green flag is pressed do whatever follows.

This means place our robot (go to block) to point on the screen roughly in the centre of the screen.

Do you want a challenge: What do think would happen if instead 0 and 0 in the white spaces in the go to block, we put in 50 and 50? Have a guess.

This means stop the scratch program for 1 second and the carry on.

We can use this block to move the robot 50 steps on the screen in the

direction it is facing.

Do you want a challenge: How do you think we could get the robot to move 100 steps? Have a guess..

We can use this block to turn the robot to the right 45 degrees.

Do you want a challenge: How do you think we could get the robot to move 90 degrees to the right? Have a guess.

Activity 2: Have a go at guessing what it is going to do?

Using what you have learnt in Activity 1.

Let us look at this block of programming.

What do you think it is going to do? If you have someone helping you tell them what you think it does.

If you don’t get it exactly right, it is more important to have a guess.

Activity 3: Try it for yourself

Now go to the weblink: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/3 84342734 You should see something that looks like figure 1 Click on the box at the top of the screen that says see inside. You should a screen similar to Figure 2 Now press the green flag it should now perform a little dance.

Questions

Does the robot work the way you thought it would from Activity 2? If it did move the way you thought– great! If it didn’t move the way thought still good. What was different?

Figure 1

Figure 2



Activity 4: Change it a bit

Save your work from Activity 3 by going to the top of the screen: find file, click on it and the click on Save to your computer. Then press the save button. Now change the code so that the robot moves in a square. Hint: We need to move in a straight line and then turn 90 degrees several times.

Figure 3

Questions

Does the robot work the way you thought it would? If it did move the way you thought– great! Can you make it move in a rectangle where two sides are longer than the other two? If it didn’t move the way thought still good. What was different?

Activity 5: Try it for yourself

Save your work from Activity 4. Now produce a dance routine for the robot. It must include moving forward and at least three turns.



Figure 4

Figure 5

You could also try adding in  Making it move backwards (negative number in the move block)  Turning left  

This story is from:


If you would like to know more about the Junkbots project contact scott.turner@northampton.ac.uk

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

junkbots 3 - bring it all together

Junkbots session 3: Move the robot but now there are rocks in the way.  This is the last of three posts - Introduction and sequence - Loops and just having fun - This one: Making decisions and bringing it all together. What is the Junkbots project The Junkbots project has been running for a number of years as an initiative to bring sustainability, computing and engineering together by building bots out of junk; details of the project can be found at.  https://junkbots.blogspot.com/  . Junkbots is an extension of the Research into the teaching problem-solving going on at the University of Northampton please feel to visit  https://computingnorthampton.blogspot.com/2019/01/problem-solving-research-outputs-and.html  for more details.   What are we going to do? ·         Play with a Scratch robot on the screen! ·         Build on the routines from the previous session. ·    ...

Junkbot Raspberry Pi: 3 How to do it

Figure 1 In previous posts I start looked at using ScratchGPIO to control a junkbot  ( http://junkbots.blogspot.com/2014/08/junkbot-pi-1-scratchgpio.html ) and showed a Pi controlled junkbot briefly in action ( http://junkbots.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/junkbot-raspberry-pi-2-raspberry-pi.html ). In this post I aim to discuss - Choice of motor controller card - Provide an example of a drawing junkbot controlled through Scratch and Raspberrry Pi Choice of interface/Controller card The card choosen was the 4Tronix PiRoCon card  ( http://4tronix.co.uk/store/index.php?rt=product/product&product_id=182 ). Selected for four reasons - Price is reasonable (in my opinion). - Fits straight onto the Pi through the GPIO - no extra cables needed. - ScratchGPIO has it as an addon so it makes programming it even easier (see http://cymplecy.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/pirocon-from-4tronix/ ). - Others are using it for robot projects. Use it is quite easy plug the board directl...

Brooke Weston Event

Students at Brooke Weston School, Corby have been working with the University of Northampton's School of Science and Technology on the junkbots project. Scott Turner and Terry Tudor on the 16th and 17th February 2010 went to the school to run the sessions. Starting with a talk and activities on waste management, including how much waste the UK produced, and in terms of numbers of slices of toast what is the cost of energy of leaving a monitor on overnight.   The task was to produce robots out of rubbish that could carry other rubbish into a containment area. The change made to the sessions was that students brought there own 'junk' to the sessions. S ome innovative and creative designs were produced involving 'legs', wheels (including turning cans into wheels and wheels from old toys).    Some of the designs pushed rubbish into the area, but one of the designs carried the rubbish into the area and some designs used magnets to pick up small steel parts (nuts a...