Challenge Day - Day of the challenge

I had a touch time with this challenge. I really did not even know what to do. I finally got a code thanks to help from Mr. Bell, but it didn't work at all. it only moved forward, it didn't even count the lines. I don't really know what I could've done to make my robot better because I never could understand how to even program my robot for this challenge. Hopefully I will do better on the next challenge.

Challenge 2

Day 17: I liked this challenge a lot. I found it fairly easy, and it was fun. Obviously, my robot performed well, but I think it was pure luck that I did so well. I did not expect my robot to do as well as it did. I just got lucky with the timing part of my program. Other than the timing and getting it to stop at the appropriate time though, I found the program very easy. I found it strange and amusing that Jeremiah and I had the same number of parts in such different cars.

Reaction to Challenge 2

I was not as happy with my robot's performance for the challenge as I thought I would be. I thought that my robot would be able to count the lines accurately and then stop, which it did not. I think that I should have had my robot run a subroutine or something like that instead of jumping and creating a loop, because my robot got stuck in the loop and had to wait for another dark line. To solve this I had to touch the robot, costing me points.

H-17

I thought this challenge was easier than the last one, once I got help from Mr. Bell and Noel. I liked how the challenge was straightforward. What I didn't like was how none of our robots stopped on their own, and wish we would have had that tip to make it stop on its own.

Competition Results.

Today was our land mine detecting competition. My robot didn't do very much except just go straight and stay in a line. I think this is because I wasn't able to figure out how to do anything and I didn't find much help elsewhere. I think it would have gone better if at least my robot had counted the lines, but I couldnt get it to do that. I really dont care for comments on how to get it to work. I just think that the upcoming project is going to be really hard. For some reason.

Challenge 2: The Actual Night Before

I had thought that I was ready for the competition today, but I wasn't. When I had tested out my robot on the final day of class before the weekend, it had seemed to work fine. However, when I ran the program this morning, something went wrong. The main problem was that the battery seemed to have lost power, and thus my robot could not operate as it was supposed to. To solve this, I changed the power level in my program. Despite solving this problem, I still was not content with my program. It seemed to work only conditionally, when the dark line was distinct enough. I solved this by adjusting the percent value in the wait for dark and wait for light icons in my program. Hopefully, my robot is now fully ready for the competition.

Challenge 2: Day 4 (The day before)

I am hopefully ready for this challenge. I got help from Mr. Bell today with my programming and that is all good. The only problem I have right now is that when I try to load my program onto my robot, it say 'programming error'. So hopefully I can figure that out in about 3 minutes or so.

Challenge 2 Progress

Day 16: Today, expecting to have to compete today, I was almost ready. After about five minutes of fine-tuning my robot's timing, I was ready. After the unexpected extra day, I was able to help people understand the programming better or read a book. I am ready for tomorrow, and expect to do well. I also think I have a good chance at getting the bonus points for simplest car.

H-16

I was completely ready for the project this morning, until everything went wrong. I couldn't find my program file. Luckily, with help from Noel, I was able to complete a full program. I am pretty much set for tomorrow.

Challenge 2: The Day Before

Originally, I wasn't sure how I was going to get my robot to run the proper loop in the program. However now, after some help from Mr. Bell, I feel ready for the competition tomorrow. The only thing left that I need to do tomorrow is to adjust the timing in my program. I also plan to test out my robot on the course for the challenge tomorrow.

Challenge 2: Day 3

I have been having problems programming my robot to do this challenge, but Mr. Bell has been helping me and hopefully I will be ok for the challenge day. I also have not seen any classmates have problems that I can help with.

H-15

I am almost completely finished with this project, thanks to Mr. Bell. I now understand the programming part much better now. Theo nly thing I have to do now is adjust the time that it runs for, and i also just have to tweak a few more things. I will be set and ready to go Tuesday.

Challenge 2 Progress

Day 15: Today, with help and advice from Mr. Bell, I realized a mistake I made and made lots of progress. I realized that I needed to have my robot "announce" the number of mines at the end, not while it was running, and the modified program is working better than the last program I had. The new program does everything that i need it to. The only thing I have left to do it determine some distances and times on Tuesday. I think that I will do fairly well, and have a fairly simple robot, so I think that I am in the running to get the bonus points for simplest vehicle.

Challenge 2: Day 2

I am having a lot of problems with this challenge. My robot is already built but the programming is giving me a lot of problems. I really don't know what to do, but hopefully I can figure something out tomorrow.

Working on Challenge 2

By now, I am completely finished building my robot. The only thing I have left to do for Challenge 2 is to finish the program. While working today, I figured out how to count the "mines" for the most part. I also learned how to write to the display on the RCX. Now, my main problem is figuring out how to make the robot only go for a certain time, as well as a few kinks in the program. I plan to have these completely worked out tomorrow.

Challenge 2 Progress

Day 14: I think that I am doing better with this challenge than the last one. My RCX and program are being inconsistent though. I have gotten my program to work on several occasions, and am getting the robot to stop well now, but the counting of mines is not reliable yet. I have had several tests in which the robot has done exactly what it was supposed to, and some where it only picked up the first line it crossed, and all of these tests were with an identical program. Once I get that issue resolved though, I only have some timing and speed issues to work out before I am done, unless I figure out a far superior method by the end of tomorrow's class.

H-14

This challenge is harder than the last one for me. It is going to take a lot more programming skills. However, I have gotten closer to finishing my program. I just need to tweak it here and there to make sure it is counting the lines. I also think I am going to set a time for it to stop. Although this is a harder challenge, I think I will succeed.

Challenge 2 Initial Reaction

Well I think one of the harder parts is going to be figuring out how the heck to make the code all work together since it doesn't necessarily tell you. But I am excited because I found out how to make a container and I guess I just need to find out the rest of it. Im not really worried about making it have the least amount of parts as I just want it to run succesfully. I am going to try to get it to stop after not seeing black for 2 seconds or something. But it will be running slower because I need it to not go out of the course.

H-11

Now that we have been given our specifications as to how the first challenge is going to be, there are some things I had problems with. I had a lot of instances where pieces were just falling off of the robot and somethings weren't lining up correctly. It is very frustrating when that happens and it hurts your hands to have to push the pointy legos back into position.

H-7

Inventor day 2.
One thing that I would have to add to inventor is that it is a great tool and more useful than pilot. Not only for the more obvious freedom but because it shows you what is wrong with your program. I think its really helpful to see ," oh no! a broken wire. ill have to fix that." And then you can just go and erase all the broken wires and then you get the error console which is also helpful. Pilots just like, "run it and youll see if it works." Inventor also allows you to save the program to different slots and set the ports as you see fit. Good program.

Challenge 2 Reaction

Day 13: I think that I will like the second challenge bit more than the first one. The second challenge sounds easier, although I don't think it will be as easy as it sounds. The land mine counting should be easy. I can just have the robot beep when it crosses one or have it display the number. getting it to stop should be fairly easy too. I can just make it stop after 15 cm without a mine or after a certain period of time without a mine. What I am most worried about is programming the loops and connections, which I do not feel prepared to do, even after the inventor levels.

Challenge 2

I feel that that as opposed to challenge one, the focus of this challenge is more on the programming of the robot. So far, I have almost completed building my robot, but still need to construct the program. I know that I will need a light sensor to count the lines, but I am not sure how I am going to program it. I think I will have the robot run while counting lines, and then somehow stop once it has not found a line for 15cm. I am looking forward to this challenge and hope to come up with some ideas for the programming part of it tonight.

Challenge 2: Day 1

My first reaction to this challenge is that it is a little difficult. I don't have much of an idea yet for how I am going to get my robot to count the 'land mines' but I am thinking about it tonight. As for stopping it, I think I will have it run for a set amount of time and if it doesn't sense any more black tape, then it will stop.

H-13

I have a vague idea how I'm going to get my robot to work for the second challenge. However, I am a little stumped on what I'm going to use to count lines, though I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a light sensor. But, I do know that I'm going to get it to stop with a timer. Overall, I think I have a pretty good understanding of what I'm going to need to do.

Challenge 1

Day 12: I found the first challenge to be both interesting and fun, except for one small problem. My robot performed as I expected it to, except for the fact that I could not get it to stop on its own. I tried everything I could think of to achieve this, and succeced on one test immediately before the challenge. During and since the challenge though, I could not figure out how to get the robot to stop. I would appreciate comments with advice on this subject. Other than that, my robot worked very well, and did exactly what I wanted.

Challenge #1

Today, I thought that my robot performed well. It completed all the requirements, and I feel that the time needed for it to finish, 32 seconds, was satisfactory. I think that my robot could have performed better by knowing where the line was, instead of just running the motors for a specific time. This would have cut a few seconds off of the time. Overall, I feel that my robot did a very good job.

H-12

I thought the challenge was really fun even though my robot didn't do so well in the competition. I forgot to test which way the robot would go after it's first rotation. But, it was a good experience and will do better with the next challenge.

H-11

My robot is really coming together. I have all the programming done as well as the construction of my robot. All I need to do now is some minor tweaks, but I am ready for the competition.

Day of the challenge

The challenge ended up being really fun. I was happy that my robot completed what I wanted it to do and really everything was good about it. The only thing that was bad was that there was always one can left in the circle. If I were to fix this I would just have my robot run about one or two extra loops to be sure that every can was out of the circle.

Challenge Day 3

Day 11: By now, my robot is completely finished and I only have one minor detail to finish in my program. The only obstacle left is to get the robot to stop when it is done. I am looking forward to the challenge on Monday.

Challenge 1 the last day

My robot for challenge one is going great. I have completed the physical aspect and I am pretty much done with the programming of it. All I need to do is test my robot on the actual posterboard with the tape and make little to no changes to the programming. I have also tested the time it may take for my robot to get the cans out, and as of now it is under one minute. I am excited to participate in the challenge tomorrow and hope my robot will do what it is supposed to.

Challenge #1 - The Day Before

I think that I made a lot of progress this past class. I finalized the physical design of my robot, and only have to possibly make a few slight tweaks to my program. I have decided that the most efficient way to remove all of the cans from the circle is to have my robot go in a pattern while pushing all of the cans out. The pattern is designed to cover the entire circle. I look forward to testing out my robot at the start of class tomorrow and then competing in the competition.

Challenge one, day two

I did not really have an idea of what to do yesterday and thought I would have some problems. But that night I thought about how I would construct my robot and how I would make it get all of the cans out of the circle. I now have my robot constructed and I am now working on the programming. Things are going ok so far.

Robot Resources

I think a good resource for building a robot is the quick start guide. I think this is good because it teaches you how to program the robot and how to build it. Another resource could be the book that shows you ways to build the robot.

Kourtney

Challenge Day 2

As of day 2, I have formulated a plan for removing the cans from the ring. However, I have not yet managed to write a program for executing this plan. I have however, managed to build a robot. Tomorrow, I plan to work out the kinks in my program. I need to do this and have enough time to test my robot so that I can be sure that it will perform its task on the day of the competition.

Challenge Bot Progress

Day 10: My robot construction for the challenge is going very well. The robot is fairly simple, but it is completely constructed, and I have most of my program written. The only thing I still need to do is test and fine-tune the robot. I plan to do that tomorrow.

Progress little I have.

Well I have been working out my idea on how I am to push the cans out of the way. I really would like to learn how inventor actually works because it just pops you into a program that you dont know how to use and most of the stuff you try out doesn't work because it doesn't tell you how to make it work. I think pilot would actually be easier to use and just make a lot more steps since I dont even understand why I can't make more than one step work at a time in inventor.
Jeremiah

H-10. How my robot is progressing.

I think I am really progressing well towards my final goal. My basic idea is to have the robot basically make itself go into the center of the circle and then rotate with long sort of arms, and push all the cans out of the way. My biggest challenge will probably be if cans fall over. I don't know if the arms are low enough yet to push out the cans that fall down.


Jordan

H-8 Information on robots

I think the actual guide that is provided in class is a great resource for construction. It gives great ideas of robots, how to construct them, and how to program them. I am really having a hard time finding other information for resources.

Inventor for a second day. homework 7?

I think Inventor is very free and much more customizable than pilot. However, it is much more difficult. For example, there are many programs that I do not know about that could probably really help me with my robot. In all, I think Inventor is much more useful than pilot.


Jordan

Challenge 1

I think that this challenge is supposed to be simple, but I am having a little difficulty with it. I am still trying to figure out how I should build my car and how I will get the cans out of the circle. Tonight I will be thinking it out and will hopefully understand how to do it tomorrow.

Kourtney

Challenge Day 1

Day 9: Today we started the first challenge. The challenge seems moderately easy. I plan to simply put a funnel-like "mouth" on the front of a basic vehicle, and have the car drive around until all of the cans are moved out of the circle. I think that the hardest thing to do by the deadline will be to write a program that has the robot stop after it has moved all of the cans away.

More Information

Day 8: I could not find any more helpful information on using the RCX Lego kit.

Robot Resources

After looking at the recommended website, I feel that it would be helpful in coming up with ideas for constructing and programming the robot. I also think that the Quick Start Guide and book provided in class are great resources. They provide great instructions for how to program a robot and utilize all of the applicable functions in Inventor. I hope that these sources will also be helpful in constructing a robot and program for the second challenge.

The First Challenge

I think that the first challenge will be pretty simple. The I think the best way to remove all the cans from the circle is to just have the robot drive around the entire circle, pushing all the cans out. I had originally thought that I would have the robot detect each can it removes with a touch sensor, but then I realized that there wasn't a set number of cans, so I couldn't tell the robot how many cans it had to remove in total. I think that my program and robot are coming along pretty well, and I think that I will meet the deadline.

H_9

I dont think this will be an easy challenge. Its not like we completely understand how Inventor works, therefore throwing difficulty into an already hard challenge. Plus theres this whole size limit thing. So I guess we just have to figure out our way around that. Maybe just making it wide enough that its still under the rules and then just making it spin. Hopoefully this will work. Oh yeah. We also have to make it stop at the black line. So well see how that goes.

First Challenge

I think this challenge should be pretty simple. I have an idea how I'm going to make it work. I think that the construction of the car should be easier than actually programming it. One of the things that could stand in my way is the length limit.

Inventor Level

I think inventor level is more expansive and free than pilot. This is because of the ability to make things happen at the same time and not have to fit everything into a criteria. It can be confusing what to do at some times. But I think that most of the time Inventor level is fun to play around with and program the RCX with.
Jeremiah

Inventor Level Pt. 2

I have not changed my opinion of the Inventor levels. I find them better than the Pilot because they have alot more options for things your robot can do, like play music, and do two things at once. I still think that Inventor can get confusing, but it is still fun.

Kourtney (day 7 assignment)

Robot programming resources.

One of the most useful resources that I found for RCX programming was the packet of information itself. It seems to contain all the information you need to program the programs on the RCX. The Lego programming packet also gives us the necessary projects that we can use to increase our knoweledge of the RCX.

Inventer Level

I think the Inventor level is much better than the Pilot level although it is more difficult. It is much more customizable than Pilot. You can program lots more things with the Inventor Level. Inventor level is more difficult though. There are some very advanced controls in the program and its not always easy to work.


Jordan

Rectangle Car

I think that making the car go in a rectangle was very tedious. It's probably one of the hardest things to program. For Example, after my first initial run, it was not even close to a rectangle. It was not even a shape. I had to tweak the car multiple times to get it even close to working.


Jordan

Inventor Level Day 2

After using the Inventor level some more, I am really appreciating how many options it gives you. The main problem with it is that I am still not familiar with all of the commands available in the fourth Inventor level. There are some sophisticated commands that I feel could be of help. However, that does not offset the many advantages of the Inventor level. The Inventor level is much better than the Pilot level because it allows you to control the flow of your robots program much more.

Inventor Levels, Part 2

Day 7: After using more features of the Inventor Levels, my opinion of them has not changed. If anything, my feelings about them have grown stronger. It is still good to know exactly what is happening, and to set up what will happen by yourself, instead of just adjusting pre-arranged commands. There are still some difficulties with the connections between steps, but I think that I will get used to those with experience.

Inventor

I think that the inventor level is better than the pilot levels. The differences are that with inventor you get more choices for what you want your robot to do, while in pilot there weren't very many options. The good thing about inventor is that it allows more freedom, and is more fun. The only downside is that it sometimes can get confusing, but I can usually figure out what it is talking about.

-Kourtney (day 6 assignment)

Rectangular Problems

The problem with making a robot that is not made of solidly stated parts go in a rectangle is...well there are a few of them. One of the main ones is that the pieces aren't always perfectly centered where you want them to be. My one wheel continued to warp a bit each time. So that would be the main problem with it. The other one is that some mechanical problems cannot be fixed with timing changes completely. It's easy to set a new time and try that out, but it doesnt fix wheels or motor problems.
Jeremiah

Inventor Levels

I think that the Inventor Level is both more interesting and more difficult than the Programmer Levels. The Inventor Level allows you to do almost anything that the robot can do, which gives you much more freedom. This also causes them to be slightly more difficult to use. In the Inventor Level, you must think every step through, put them all together, and link them together in the right order. One thing that I did not like about the Inventor Level was the fact that, while connecting some of the wires, you were forced to try multiple times to get the "wires" in exactly the right place, and if you didn't, the program would not work correctly.

Inventor Level

I think that the Inventor level program is much better than the Pilot level. It provides much more opportunity for customizing how your robot operates. It allows much more room for modification. I also like the interface of it more. Seeing your program in a series of connected operations is much easier to understand than different events happening in different steps, with only one step being visible at a time. I enjoy being able to view my entire program. Overall, I think that the Inventor level will provide much more opportunity in the classroom.

Cars driving in a rectangle.

I liked making the car go in a rectangle, but it was a little frustrating. It was frustrating because everytime I would test the car, it would not go into a straight line, it would go in a diagonal line. The obstacles were that the two motors could have had a different friction, causing one to run differently than the other. Another obstacle was the time of how long the car would go foward with each turn. To correct the deficiency of the time, I just kept testing how the car ran with different times to get it as close to a rectangle as possible. I think to make it work better you could make sure that the friction of the two motors are as close as you can get them to being the same.

Making our cars drive in a rectangle

Making our cars drive in a rectangle was far more difficult than I expected. First of all, I expected to be able to set the two motors to drive at the same power level for a set period of time and have the car travel in a straight line. When I tried this though, the car started pulling to the left. As a test I then switched which side each motor was on, and the car pulled to the right, signifying that one motor was weaker than the other. Once I knew this, I was able to offset the more powerful motor from power level five, which both motors had been on, to power level four, which made the two motors put out the same amount of power and allowed the car to travel in a straight line. The other difficulty I encountered was how to get the car to turn at a 90˚ angle. I first tried having the two motors run in opposite directions at full power for one second, but that lead to a turn that was far too tight. Eventually, after quite a lot of experimenting, adjusting, and guessing, I discovered that the closest I could get to a 90˚turn was to have the two motors running in opposite directions with the more powerful one at power level two and the less powerful one at full power for 0.6 seconds. As with most things, I could not get the car to drive in a perfect rectangle, but after lots of experimentation and tweaking, I got the car to drive in the closest thing to a rectangle as I found it possible to achieve.

Imperfections of Robots

While attempting to get my robot to drive in a rectangle, I encountered a number of problems. The main problem I encountered was with getting my robot to go in a straight line. To correct this, I had to change the power level in one of the motors because it seemed to run slower than the other. I also had trouble getting the turn to be an exact 90 degrees. There was not enough variability in the set times. I was not able to get my car to turn 90 degrees by simply letting it go for 0.7 seconds. It was always either a little over or a little under 90 degrees, no matter what i adjusted. In order to solve these two large problems involving distances traveled over time, I think that we would have to disregard time entirely, as it is not accurate. Instead, we could use the number of rotations of the motor and axis.

Lego = Robots ?

Does a block with legos on it and a light sensor count as a robot? Yeah! In my opinion it does. A robot is meant to do a task, and most often that task is to be repeated a bunch of times. Well guess what? Thats exactly what our robots do. They go back and forth looking at light differences and shadows. Then they repeat that on a different surface. Sound familiar? It's because that's how a robot works. We built it. It does a task and does it again. It doesnt think on its own. Its a robot. So in my opinion, the things we built are indeed robots.

Pilot Level 2: A Robot Car?

Alright, lets get down to the point. Despite these robots being given simple tasks (turning motors on for set periods of time in order to make the wheels move and stop given a touch response), I do believe that these "creations of ours" could be considered robots. They fall under the category of being programmed to perform a certain task and are obviously capable of doing so throughout a means of preset scripting. Though the tasks are quite simple, this doesn't mean that these robots are not robots. If you were to take notes on our first day of robotics, these robots fall into all of these categories in one aspect or another.

Robot Cars

I think that the cars we are building are, or at least soon will be, robots. Right now, they are not serving any particular purpose, except for driving around and stopping or turning when they receive a specific signal, but aside from that, they have all of the qualities of a robot. For instance, they are aware of their environment, through light and touch sensors. They also are capable of using their power to perform a task, if we set it up so that they could and let them. Lastly, they run by themselves once they are programmed and we push the run button, or would if we allowed the touch or light sensors to be moved by the vehicle and its environment, instead of controlling it ourselves. The cars do all of this with a computer, sensors, output devices like motors, their environment, and a program installed by us. Therefore, they are robots, or will be once we start making them serve a purpose.

Robot?

I think that the cars could be considered a very simple robot. They complete simple tasks like going a certain distance in a set amount of time. Although I think the car is a robot, I still think that they will get more complex and complete different tasks.

Robots

I think that we are not building complete robots, however we are progressing towards that goal. Our "robots" are programmed, but they do not necessarily perform a task. They do however operate mostly free from human intervention. I would say that our "robots" are not complete robots yet, but we are progressing towards that goal each day.

Robots

I think what we are building are robots. The reason for this is because we have to measure the distances, program it, and really test it. I'm not sure its really meting the criteria yet, because it hasn't completed a task (yet). But on the other hand, we are building it, so I would say currently, it matches about 50% of the criteria.


-Jordan

First week of Robotics

I immensely enjoyed the first week of this class. Working with the Legos was fun and interesting at the same time. I enjoy hands-on activities and this is definitely one of them. One thing that was a bit fustrating was trying to download the program onto the brick which you constantly had to keep moving until it received the signal. Other than that, I enjoyed this week of classes and I am anticipating the next.

The First Week of Robotics Class

Overall, I feel that the first week went well. I enjoyed working with the LEGO Mindstorms kit, and felt that it provided a thorough introduction to robotics. One thing that could be improved upon is the program we are using to program the robots. It is very simple and does not provide a direct approach to programming robots, it instead uses already built commands to create processes. However, I still feel that the first week was a great introduction to robotics.

Robotics Class, Week 1

Despite the fact that I missed the first day, I am enjoying robotics class immensely. I especially like having to encounter and fix problems ourselves. I think that the class is a very good introduction to robotics, as well as a nice break from more typical classes. I enjoy learning in a hands-on way more than just listening to a teacher talk or taking notes. Lastly, I think that the class is made easier by the fact that we are using something that is already familiar to us, in LEGOs, to build our robots.

The first week

I think the first week of class was really enjoyable. I like how we get to build the robots ourselves, and how if we have any questions they are easily answered. I think robotics is already a great class and there is really nothing I don't like about it.

Things that could be improved upon.

I think that the H.A. robotics class is fun to the point of actually programming. I think it would be more beneficial to know how robots work if we actually used a programming language to code. This would more so give an example of what they are actually coded with than a "drag and drop" program like the Lego one. I just would rather actually "code" than paste around things for it to do. I also dont like how it is set up already. I would much rather have a screen thats black and a terminal telling me to," C://robotics.doc edit?*blink-blink*. And then we would look up more commands and things to make the robots do. Like we could use the program visual basic or something.

Robotics Class

I think the robotics class is really interesting and fun. I like how we have to program and measure everything ourselves. I also like how we can modify the robots. I really can't think of anything that needs to be improved on because I really enjoy this class.

LEGO's

When I was little, I wasn't too interested in LEGO's. I started to just play around with them when I was 10. The biggest thing I ever built was a huge star wars ship. Me and my friend put it together and it was really interesting. Then I started building bigger and more complicated projects.

Robotics Class

In robotics class so far we have done an excercise in human programming. And we found out that we have to program EVERYTHING we want the computer or the robot to do. It's a neat class so far and I am looking forward to more.

Playing with summa Legos.

Right. Well I played with legos a bunch and many other designing tools also. One of my favorite lego creations that I made was a car. It was difficult and had square wheels but I was able to make a hummer like vehicle. It didn't roll very well but did a good job at looking cool. I wish I had a picture of it but I dont. Well thats what I played with.
Jeremiah

Playing with Legos

Back a fair amount of years ago, I had several experiences with Legos. Initially, I understood the basic concepts described in the booklet as well as the linking pieces, though I wasnt well, too talented at putting thse things together. I was introduced to these neat little toys first in a classroom environment where I heard them mentioned. I soon developed a moderate interest in thse various colored blocks, and built simple vehicles and such. On the contrary to thoroughly inspecting the confines of the manual, I decided to simply "immerse" myself within them, starting fron scratch on simple items. If I wished to move up a scale on an object, I would merely purchase another kit which provided spare parts from what I recall. I eventually dropped this when I lost interest in them and decided that I was too old for playing with these young children'stoys.

Legos

When I was little I played with legos all the time. I would try to make the things in the instruction booklets but usually ended up making other random things, such as cars and buildings. I usually also just put random legos together to make just a block of legos.

phil's Favorite Lego creation

When I was six my father bought for my brother and I a star wars lego set. It was kind of like mindstorms; there was a motor and an instruction manual for ideas. The motor was pre-programmed for the specific sets, like if it was Darth Vader, then you would set the motor to the programmed number in the manual and then the motor would run and if you built it right and the gears worked, then the lightsaber would swing. There were many kits to build and they were grouped at different difficulty levels and I know that I built them all.

My Favorite LEGO Construction

When I was younger, LEGOs were probably my favorite toy. I spent many hours constructing many objects out of LEGOs. Many of my constructions were built using instructions from LEGO kits, but I also made many on my own. I also used the LEGO Mindstorms. My favorite creation was a robot that could sort candy based on color.

Automated Guided Vehicles

Automated Guided Vehicles or AGV are robots that use the guidance of wires or tapes to perform tasks in factories. These are most helpful because they can do jobs that humans can't and they are not hard to maintain. They mostly deliver items but they can be put to other uses too like assembling parts. They follow one specific path and they trace wires or tape. The wires are put about an inch underground and emits a radio frequency that is very low but high enough for the AGV to hear. The AGV then just follows the wire until it reaches its target. The other way an AGV can get to its target is by following the tape. The tape can be magnetic or colored.A sensor just detects the magnetism or color in the tape and just follows it. This tape system is similar to the robot we saw with the Lego RCX brick. The tape system is preferred more than the wired because if needed, the tape can be easily removed and placed elsewhere.

My LEGO creations

Among many things that I have cobbled together with LEGOs, one of my favorites was a candy dispenser. first, we built a small box out of bricks to hold the candy. I believe I used M&Ms. After building the box, I built the dispenser by making a chute about the size of one M&M, and putting it on rubber bands attached to the inside of the box. To get candy, you would push down the chute, which was held up by the rubber bands, and when the mouth of the chute passed the bottom edge of the box, a piece of candy would fall out.

Saya

Saya, a robot teacher, can converse in many different languages, do a roll call, give assignments to her students, and has eighteen motors hidden in her latex face which helps her express emotions ranging from approval to anger. She was originally developed as a receptionist robot in 2004 by professor Hiroshi Kobayashi of the Tokyo University of Science, she has been undergoing a recent transformation to function as a substitute teacher. She was designed to take over human jobs in Japan in an effort to deliver a cheaper workforce as the population ages.

Paro the Robitic Therapy Seal

Now in its eighth prototype, Paro, a robotic, lifelike seal pup is helping members of Japan's elderly population by giving them a chance to interact with an "animal" while eliminating any danger real animals might pose. Made by Intelligent System Co., Ltd., Paro can sense sight, temperature, touch, posture and speech through various sensors in its head and body. Paro can recognize eight of the world's most spoken languages, and uses its abilities to entertain relax, and interact with therapy patients, especially the elderly. Paro is recognized as the world's most theraputic robot

The Autosub Underwater Probe

The Autosub is an advanced submersible robot. It was built and designed by the National Oceanography Centre in the United Kingdom. This robotic, unmanned submarine is capable of running pre-programmed missions up to a length of 40 hours. The Autosub performs these tasks by running a program, and traveling underwater powered by torch batteries. It operates without human intervention. The scientists needed the Autosub because it was capable of traveling under ice in the Southern Ocean, where it was too cold for humans to spend an extended period of time. With the help of the Autosub, scientists discovered a major food source under ice in the Southern Ocean.

NASA Mars Robot

NASA is inventing a new Moon Rover for a mission in 2012. It can explore thousands of miles of the moons surface, and can put astronauts on the moon for 6 months or longer. It's about the size of a pickup truck. The Rover can house two astronauts and is designed for little or no maintenance. The NASA moon rover was tested in the southwest by driving over hot lava.