Sunday 15 March 2009

robocup junior

Thanks to nz-interface magazine, I found some Professional Development that fitted right up my alley. LEGO mindstorms robotics with there new product NXT.

This is what I have been looking for a while now, the last set of training I had in robotics was good, but this was specific to my needs and I had a fun day learning as well as being in competition with students and other teachers, well more the students from the other school.

It started off with looking at previous years work through a DVD that was being shown, this has highlighted some ideas for me. Next was looking at the interface and connecting into the program. Then the play started, as we developed our programs just by seeing what different things did, me and the students started a challenge, to get our robots from one end to a specific point at the other without touching an object. This was a straight challenge that started off the competition between teachers and students. the rest of the day was jumping back and forth from the laptops to the competition floor, the teacher running the event kept coming with the challenges and the learning took place. Not too much was taught, but I enjoy that, it is a case of finding and trying it out yourself.

Task One - Travel a length of distance without touching the object at the end, closet to the object wins.

Task Two - Travel a variable length of distance without going over the cliff, this introduces the light sensor.

Task Three - Do not go outside the circle - Black and White

Task Four - Walk the line, part one, follow a straight line.

Task Five - Walk the line , part two, follow a non straight line

Task Six - Walk the line, part three, hitting an object, this introduces a touch sensor

Task Seven - Walk the maze

This was what we focussed on for the day, there was another task which was getting the robot to dance, this can be carried out at school. Another thing is to focus on the programming, not on the design of the robot, yes your robot can look good, but it has to work. Thank you to Toshiba and to the Auckland robocup organiser for such a wonderful day.

Resource Ideas
http://www.techxellenttraining.com.au/Robot%20Rescue.pdf

http://robofesta.open.ac.uk/planetscience/package/admin.html <- old RCX development

Sumo assesment from aotea tech

Blogs from students doing robotics assessment

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