What is the most difficult aspect of this project?
The most difficult part of this project is managing your time. You have to manage your time by organizing when or what you will do. For example, my group did not manage time well because we spent too much time making the exterior of the robot instead of focusing on the functionality.
What was the most enjoyable aspect of the project?
The most enjoyable part of the project is putting in the component and programming the robot. It is always fun to see your robot actually function and the fact that it actually functions gave us hope to finish the project.
What did you do well?
I think we did well on catching up on putting in the components. After we have found out that we only have a few days left, me and my partner started spending flex time and after school building the robot and that is the part that I felt I did well.
What should you do differently next time?
Next time, I should not start with something too big. The robot my group planned is very big (around 50 cm in length) and we found out that even if we are the first ones to work on the project, we still can’t be faster than people working on small projects which is considerably less harder to make or stabilize.
What did you learn about physically building a robot?
One of the most important things I have learned is a rule that can be applied to safety: to always close your knife we you are not using it; the reason is that people can get hurt. Another thing that I learned is to choose your materials wisely, we used masking tape to stick things together, but we should be using hot glue, so it saves us time and is much more stabled.
What did you learn about programming a robot?
I learned that programming a robot is quite easy, but it requires some logic for you to solve a certain program and how you want to adjust it. I also learned that first graders are more impressed about the colors of the animal like when my group made the eyes shine sea green, all the first grader came to us and complimented on how beautiful it is.
What would you like to learn about the building and/or programming the robots?
Someday, I would like to learn to python, java script or C++ which is a complex version of programming. That way, we can program much more impressive things than just large pieces of blocks. Learning these complex programming for me also means learning a new language which is what I desire to do.
What advice would you give to a student who is at the beginning of this unit?
I would suggest that you guys choose your materials wisely and plan out everything clearly and thoroughly so that way there won’t be any confusion during the process of making the robot. Another important advice is that you guys should focus more on the functionality and make it more creative so it could attract the first graders more.
