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Robots are machines that execute commands automatically from a program. In week 4, we began to work with these "robots".



Five Minute Bot, Scatterbot

Robots are lifeless without a computer program. We used Python and created functions for the robot to move around systematically. Notice at the top it says "bot = pybot" and then a mac address. This piece of code is used to connect the computer and the robot by Bluetooth.



Above is the 5-minute bot. This easy-to-build marvel has a brick that stores data and communicates with the computer in the center. At its front, the bot has an ultrasonic sensor and a touch sensor used to navigate the urban jungle. On its sides are the motors, with wheels and a non-motorized wheel on the back. Yeah, it drives. Unfortunately, faulty connections between the brick and the computer rendered this robot unmovable.



After the first brick didn't work, we tried the third-generation processor: EV3. No, it didn't work, because it lacked Python compatibility. Again, the quest for a working robot revealed no reward.

Third time trying, we got another brick that... connected to Bluetooth! So we added the finishing touches and tested our robot to work, sensors, motors, everything. :D

Follow the line

Our final experiment in Robotics challenged us to program our robots to follow a green line on the floor. Well, being a specific color, we needed a color sensor to add to our robot that would examine the floor and look for green. Then we made a program with conditionals that could verify what color the ground was and act accordingly. Eventually, it worked. That concluded the Robotics unit of Computer Science.

Mars

Just kidding! After our green line challenge we had to work through a Mars simulation. We had to redesign our robot so that it could navigate a Mars like surface that had craters and water we had to discover. The color sensor finds the water, the touch sensor finds craters. In the end, our programs failed to work but I designed the robot and really appreciated my work. In the above photo, the robot is shown on top of a brown-red surface which was supposed to mimic the surface of the Red Planet. Below are alternate angle pictures of our masterpiece.