Robot Game progress
The kids spent tonight working on the program to complete the sorting mission. In this mission, the robot needs to go out and spin a wheel to get the sorter to sort out the pieces that are in the hopper. The kids decided that putting a wheel on a motor sticking out the side would be a great way to solve this issue. They figured using this technique should allow them to complete the mission more quickly.
As they worked on getting the robot out to the sorter, they originally were using rotations (number of times the motor spins) to control how far the robot goes. In the past we have had issues with using this method because depending on how charged the robot is, the number of spins can move the robot a different amount. They added a color sensor onto the robot to ensure it is where they want it to be before turning. This should allow the robot to be able to repeat the mission the same even with variations.
After getting the robot to the right spot, they needed to make sure their wheel touched the wheel on the sorter. They had to switch out the wheel with a bigger one to make sure it met. When they tried it, it turned out that the wheels had a lot of friction with one another and the robot was pushed off the sorter wheel. The kids made the robot move back very slowly to compensate, and this seemed to fix the issue.
Project progress
The kids are very excited about the project this year. We have found something that hits close to home with them. This year's theme is Trash Trek. They need to find issues surrounding the trash that we produce, and figure out how to solve it.
Most of the kids on the team go to Dexter schools, and they said that the school doesn't recycle anything from lunch. They have been doing research on how much trash is produced and what kind of changes they could make to reduce the trash.
They have been working on composing an email to the principal of Creekside to have a meeting to talk about some possibilities for recycling.
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