Part 1:

What was the most difficult aspect of this project? 

 I think the most challenging aspect is completing on time. I work badly under time pressure and I often get stressed in these circumstances. Since I also wanted to make it look good, I had to stay after-school a few times to finish the animal. Coding wasn’t extremely hard for me, I had coded before with blocks. I also found the right arm rather hard to stick onto the servo for long periods. 

What was the most enjoyable aspect of this project?

 Coming up with ideas because we just needed to search the web and think of new ideas. Also making the body and head of the Arctic Fox because they are just straight lines to cut. They were simple measurements and I am glad that we completed the Arctic Fox in time.

What did you do well?

 I think it’s the fact that we finished the robot and it looks good. I think we did well because some pairs/people didn’t end up having a functioning/good looking robot. I think it’s important because the Grade 1’s got attracted to our robot.

What would you do differently?

 I would make the robot smaller. I didn’t originally think that the robot would be that big. I think I messed up the measurements a little (or a lot).

Part 2:

What did you learn about physically building a robot?

 A lot. I realised that the thick cardboard is difficult to cut curves with, however, with the thin cardboard, it’s hard to cut exactly where I want because it’s so thin and I wanted to cut “how the cardboard what’s to”. It’s also quite hard to have precise measurements. We always had to cut the cardboard again after we attached two pieces because it wouldn’t stick together well if we added the other parts.

 The painting wasn’t, surprisingly, isn’t the easiest thing that could be done. I only had like, three-quarters of a class? Although I did accomplish to do one somewhat thick coat, I didn’t know it wouldn’t dry as opaque. The next day (which was the day of the zoo), we recognised that we could still see through the paint, but we did our best to cover anything visible with a white paint marker we found, which somewhat worked. Luckily the Grade 1’s weren’t as judgy as I thought they would be.

That did you learn about programming the robot?

 That Snap is very similar to Scratch, which I have worked with before. The only difference that I noticed is that Snap looks a lot more different compared to Scratch; nevertheless, despite this, the blocks on both are almost indistinguishable. The only other contrast I noticed is that Snap has all those HummingBird possibilities that Scratch, of course, did not. Because I have worked with Scratch in the past, I didn’t find Snap something hard to use and didn’t spend a lot of lessons on coding.

What more would you like to learn about the building and/or programming of these robots?

 Personally, the code we made was quite simple compared to the other people codes that I have seen. Also, I don’t think our we used the most convenient type of cardboard for some of the body parts. However, I am not very sure about what I want to learn/know more about.

Final Reflection Question:

What advice would you give to a student who is at the beginning of this unit? 

 I would advise them to use their time wisely. We hardly had enough time to complete and we had to (well I) had to even stay after school to have enough time. I would also tell them not to think it might be too small. Maybe I was just crazy, but we made the measurements maybe, just maybe, a teeny tiny bit, overboard. (Not really)