Subject:
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Re: Fishing for a tasty linkage/gearing/robotic building thread...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Wed, 12 May 1999 19:20:45 GMT
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Viewed:
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1445 times
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Michael Gasperi skrev i meddelandet ...
>
> I work with a local science museum (Discovery World in Milwaukee, WI) to
> create hands on activities for kids during Engineers Week (late February).
> One of the activities is for Software engineering. Right now we have them
> write a kind of computer program using colored beads strung on string. The
> program is the solution to a simple maze like problem. Red=right turn
> Blue=left turn, and Black and White beads give the binary value of the
> distance. After a kid writes a program, they give it to a neighbor who
> "executes" it to figure out where they went.
>
> To make the activity more interesting, I'd like to build a vehicle that can
> execute the program also. I would probably substitute LEGO blocks for the
> beads. The biggest problem I've got is making perfect right angle turns.
Hey, that's almost our (me and my kids) current project! We have Cybermaster,
not RIS, but in this case I think the CM is better, as it have the built-in
tachometers for the two permanent motors. We haven't gotten to the 'exact'
turning part yet, but the standard LEGO software for CM has a 'calibration'
routine for turning, so it should be doable.
Our machine reads a 'program' made by putting small bricks (1x1, square or
round) on a LEGO plate (2x8,10,any). This 'program' is driven slowly (with the
third motor, a lot of gears and some rubber bands :-) past two touch sensors
(one on each side) which for the moment just turns the drive motors on/off,
but eventually we want to have a predefined turn amount.
By using both square and round bricks, we can have a 'large' turn and a
'small' turn.
The third touch sensor detects 'program loaded' and 'end of file'.
A typical program could look like (bad ASCII art follows, fixed font
recommended):
+------------------------+
|[o][o] o (o) o [o][o][o]|
|[o][o][o] o o o o o |
+------------------------+
Which means (approximately):
Full ahead for two time steps, full right, half left, stand still, rotate left
This has been great fun, even the 9 year old has played a lot with it, and
made different 'programs', noting the different movement patterns.
Sorry, no pictures yet, I must borrow a digital camera first.
Play well,
--
Anders Isaksson, Sweden
BlockCAD: http://user.tninet.se/~hbh828t/proglego.htm
Gallery: http://user.tninet.se/~hbh828t/gallery.htm
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