Robotics+Class+4

15th October 2010.

This lesson we built the robot. Our teacher, Mr. Emanuele, divided us into groups of four; or group was then given a bix of pieces with the solution, and we had to build a robot. The solution gave us step-by-step instruction to building the robot. We took turns building, changing the builder with every step. When we wired the robot to do a certain function, we went outside to test it. In the end, the robot looked somewhat like the picture below. The robot had four ways of receiving the signal: by touch, by sound, by light and by infrared. When the robot was wired to the camera, it could follow the light it detected; however, we could not test how well it detect light because we didn’t have a flashlight, and the only light we had came from above. It kept going in circles. The robot responded to clapping when wired to a microphone. When it heard a loud sound, such as a clap or a stump with a foot, it would change the direction towards the sound. The only bad thing about that was that the robot kept going in circles, so it never reached the sound source. We didn’t get a chance to test the robot responding to touch because of lack of time. The sensor was attached to the back, and supposedly, when it was going backwards and bumped into a wall, it changed direction. The infared sensor was supposed to help the robot keep its balance, but we were missing that part so we didn’t get to try it nor figure out what its general purpose was.