Subject:
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My students' creation
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Thu, 28 Aug 2003 20:52:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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1063 times
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Last year I taught two computer classes at Fond du Lac Christian School in Fond
du Lac, WI. One of them had only four students, three seniors and one junior.
Near the end of the semester I gave them a LEGO robotics challenge.
I finally got around to posting the info and pictures about it for everyone to
see. Here’s the challenge:
Fond du Lac Christian School
LEGO Robot Challenge
May 2003
Build an autonomous LEGO robot that can find a target object (a soda can), pick
it up, and set it down outside the playing field.
Rules
- The robot must be built entirely out of LEGO elements.
- The robot must be completely autonomous.
- “Pick up” and “set down” are flexible – dragging / pushing / rolling the can is acceptable.
- The robot must have full control of the can at all times while moving it, either by encircling it with some sort of claw or by actually picking it up.
- When the robot moves a can, it must turn at least 180°. This eliminates a simple bulldozer design.
- Part of the robot must stay within the playing field at all times, which will be marked using a 1” thick black line on a white surface.
- The robot is allowed ten minutes to find and remove as many cans as possible.
- There will be at least two cans on the playing field at all times.
Scoring
The robot will begin with 50 points. Points will be adjusted based on the
following:
Good
- robot finds a can and successfully captures it: +10
- robot successfully moves a captured can outside boundaries: +10
- robot removes more than 5 cans in ten minutes: +50
- robot is able to operate autonomously inside boundaries: +20 (assessed at the end)
Bad
- robot is completely outside the boundaries: -5 (each time)
- robot fails to move a captured can outside boundaries: -5
- robot moves a can not in its control outside boundaries: -5
- robot cannot find a can at all: -20
- human intervention (see below) is required: -20 (assessed at the end)
“Humand intervention” does not include placing the robot back in the playing
field if it is “lost” outside.
Here are the links to the pictures and the test program I wrote:
Post-mod folder
Side view
Other side view
Top view
Bottom view (sorry it’s
blurry) that shows the four sensors used
The
test program I wrote
I was going to make it so they could only use the parts in a single RIS kit, but
decided against it because there wasn’t a lot of time to get it done. More parts
makes things easier sometimes, especially the third motor they had. I really
wanted them to work on the actual programming part more than the mechanical part
of this project.
So, the students used one of the chassis from the MINDSTORMS book and just added
to it using parts I gave them from my own collection. The thing on top of the
RCX controls the claw -- it’s also borrowed from the MINDSTORMS Ultimate
Builders Set. It uses one motor to both pump air and switch the pneumatic valve.
It’s a clever device that saved them a lot of time since they had the
instructions to build it.
The light sensor was originally attached to the back, but they moved it to the
front, under the long arm part. I didn’t know about that until the day the robot
had to perform, and it worked much better that way.
This project seemed to be their favorite of the whole year, so I’m glad I could
share with them the fun of LEGO robotics.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: My students' creation
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| (...) It's nice to see a mobile robot with a pneumatic claw. I´ve been working on the idea for some time by now. I came up with a compact version of the UBS compressor with valve that could be very suitable for these kind of applications. I´ve just (...) (21 years ago, 29-Aug-03, to lugnet.robotics, FTX)
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