Skip to main content

Huxlow Pt 2: Lego Robots


 The second half (programming lego robots) on the junkbots project has been carried out at Huxlow Science College on 28th February 2011.

At the start of the day most of the students had not previously programmed a robot or (knowingly) a computer.

The first task was to get the robot to collect some rubbish and push it over a line and then move back to the another line. All groups programmed the robot to do this and some groups add a sweeper to the front of the robot to push several items at once across the line.

The second task was to get the robot to collect the rubbish this time, but without adding any attachments to the front of the robot. Several groups successfully did this, by programming the robot to follow a path that collected the rubbish (drinks cans) and put them behind the line.

The third and fourth tasks involved the use of a sensor:
-To build the robot that did not move unless there was a can in front of the robot.
-To build a robot that went around the can when it detected it.

Some of these students went from never programming to programming robots that could react to objects all in one day.

Feedback from this group for the junkbots activity (figure 1)  and the lego robot (figure 2) activities was generally good. Thank you to all those who took part.

Figure 1: Junkbot activity (Day 1)



Figure 2: Lego Robots (Day 2)

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: 2 Raspberry Pi Junkbot in action

First video of a junkbot being controlled by a Raspberry Pi. The bot was developed by Hayden Tetley and Scott Turner. Hayden's time was paid  for through the Nuffield Research Placements  Scheme ( http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/nuffield-research-placements ). Next post will provide further details on how this was done. If you would like to know more about the Junkbots project contact scott.turner@northampton.ac.uk

Junkbot Raspberry Pi: 1 ScratchGPIO

A development I have being wanting to develop for a while is the combine the Raspberry Pi with a Junkbot to add some control.  This the first of postings about these experiments. All the development will be around ScratchGPIO ( http://cymplecy.wordpress.com/scratchgpio/ ) so this posting will look into its use . Why ScratchGPIO? Short answer - simplicity. It is designed to look and work like Scratch ( http://scratch.mit.edu/ ) but allowing access to board that can drive motors. Installing ScratchGPIO? As a suggest use as lastest as possible version of the operating system as you can on your SD card. Initially we had trouble with missing Python files that was resolved when using an updated version of the operating system. In the LXTerminal Type in: sudo wget http://goo.gl/Pthh62 -O isgh5.sh then type in sudo bash isgh5.sh You should get to new icons for ScratchGPIO5 and ScratchGPIO5Plus Now use these instead of the Scratch that came with the operating...