The robot petting zoo is the first unit of the Robotics and Coding elective. I just finished the unit by showing our robots to Grade 1 students in the robot petting zoo.
What is the most difficult part of the project for me? In my opinion, it is making and attaching the body of the robot. When I and my partner cut the cardboard, it came out with rough edges, therefore, attaching the parts is more difficult since hot glue is easy to accidentally glue in the wrong place and could break easily if we did not stick it on properly.
What is the most fun part of the coding? I think the most enjoying part is the coding. It may seem a bit odd but the reason I think so is that when I finish the coding and run it, the robot comes to life! It moves and transforms from a still statue into a moving robot! That is why I thought it is the best part.
What did I do well? I think I did a good job of attaching the cables into the Hummingbird/brain of the robot. Even though my hands have limited space of moving in the body, I still managed to push in the wires to the respective ports and secure them so they do not go out.
What would I do differently if I did this again? If I could, I would use my time more efficiently rather than dedicating a lot of time on a single thing. We spent about 2-3 classes in just planning which is actually a lot of unnecessary time to waste.
What did I learn about physically building a robot? I learned to not just use glue to make angles but also use L braces and several other ways in attaching cardboard or ways to make good 90-degree angles.
What did I learn in programming the robot? I learned that when you program the motor that rotates 360-degrees you use values 100 to -100 to control the speed not 1-360 to control the angle like the servo (except the servo is 180 degrees only). The entire time I thought the motor was to be controlled by the angle but apparently it is supposed to be controlled by the speed of it spinning.
What would I like to learn more about the robotics and/or coding? I would like to explore more with the hummingbird about the vibration motors and more advanced sensors like the sound sensor or the joystick. I think Snap wasn’t challenging enough in terms of coding, so I think I can challenge myself by trying the Arduino and its text-based coding.
What advice would I give to a student that was beginning the unit? I would recommend the student to use their time efficiently. If you know that you aren’t that good at attaching cardboard, then focus more of your time on that. If you know you are bad at the programming part, you should focus on this first. You should allocate more time for your disadvantages. Of course, also make sure that you don’t spend too much time on a single thing. Another thing I would recommend is having to make sure your robot has a reasonable amount of functionality. Having just 1 functionality will result in your robot being boring, but having too much will result in you not finishing them on time.