Technology Plan Since the invention of fire and the wheel, man has had a voracious appetite for

technology that only continues to grow. As mans ability to understand and use technology becomes more sophisticated, so do the tools. One of the most sophisticated tools available to humans is the robot. Like other technologies, robots augment mans physical and intellectual abilities and allow man to do tasks that would have been dangerous or impossible by a human alone. As robots continue to advance in their design and real world applications, they are able to take on more sophisticated tasks. But robots have not yet reached the pinnacle of robot evolution, the human-like android with the shape, decision-making capabilities, and possibly even the emotions of a human but the strength and computational abilities of a machine. For now we will have to be content with machines that help us in many important fields including manufacturing, the military, and exploration. In our unit, we focus how robots help man to explore environments that would otherwise be impossible for a human to navigate alone. Our unit has three possible challenges for the students. Students will be presented with simulations of real world situations that happen in outer space, underwater or on land and will use robots to solve specific problems. Because of time restrictions, students will be asked to choose only one of the three basic exploration tasks. If time allows, students will then be given additional Challenges that ask them to build on their success in the basic tasks. If there are twelve students in both the morning and afternoon classes, the students will be grouped into four teams of three students. Each group will choose one

Technology Plan for Operating in the Robotic Matrix Tracy McIntyre and Shannon Turner of three scenarios (two are land environments and one is a water environment) from the Robotic Matrix: Minesweeper/Avoiding the Minefield, The Poseidon Misadventure, and We Are Not Alone. For the first day of the two land Missions, students will be given a Lego Rover Robot that has been partially assembled and a laptop with the companion control program that can be used to issue commands to the rover. After guided instruction on how to program their robot to execute simple commands such as basic movement, students will continue on to the more complex movement commands and how to control the peripheral attachments needed to complete the days Mission. Each day, students will need to apply problem solving skills about how to program and command the rover to complete the exploration Mission. In the Minesweeper/Avoiding the Minefield mission, students will program their robots to navigate a simulated battlefield where minefields make it too dangerous for humans to complete their task of bringing humanitarian aid to an embattled village. The simulated battlefield, made from a dry-erase surface, will have magnets (representing the unexploded mines) located at random places underneath the surface. To complete the mission successfully, the students will need to program their robots to use an attachment fitted with a magnetic sensor to detect the mines. Once the sensor is activated (indicating a mine is present), the robot will use a separate attachment fitted with a dry erase marker to circle the mine. Once all five mines are located, the students will then have their robots carry soldiers (or aid workers) represented by toy men across the battlefield to their rescue ship. This challenge will have students

Technology Plan for Operating in the Robotic Matrix Tracy McIntyre and Shannon Turner applying skills that real world soldiers use overseas to help them survive on the battlefield. In the underwater mission, The Poseidon Misadventure, students will design and create an underwater robot from scratch. The robot must then retrieve a piece of equipment that was lost at sea. The equipment cannot be replaced and will become unusable if it remains in the water too long. Some of the parts needed to create this underwater robot are PVC pipes, waterproof electrical wires, propellers, DPDT on-off switch, foam pool noodles, and propeller adapters. The cost of each underwater robot is less than fifty dollars compared to hundreds of dollars for the rover robots. The trade off is that the underwater robot does not have the ability to handle sophisticated attachments or data. Once students have built their underwater robots, they will need to test their buoyancy (to make sure it can travel at the right depth), their balance (to create a stable center of gravity so it doesnt flip over, or tip up or down), and their ability to move the three propellers safely to capture the equipment (sunken pool toy) within the timeframe and bring it to the surface without causing any damage to it. This challenge will have students applying problem solving skills that the Coast Guard, Navy, or even private treasure hunters use to find and retrieve sunken items or treasure. The second land mission, We are Not Alone, simulates extraplanetary exploration. With the Robot Rover students will learn about a newly discovered planet called Kryla. Scientists need the rover to collect soil samples (place a ping pong ball into a plastic cup held by the rover) to be studied on Earth. Additionally, students will have obstacles like mountains and rocks and they must maneuver around this complex environment and return back to the ship with the samples safely stored. A pre-

Technology Plan for Operating in the Robotic Matrix Tracy McIntyre and Shannon Turner defined path will be marked with masking tape, representing terrain that the robot finds impassible. This challenge students can compare this Mission to the Mars Rover that NASA scientists have piloted and used to explore the planet Mars. At the end of each day, students will be asked to visit our units website, http://operating-in-the-robotic-matrix.weebly.com/resources.html, and blog about their teams experience with the Mission and anything else about the days lesson that they would like to share. This blog will be a way for different teams to share both successes and failures with building and operating their robots and hopefully this collaboration will help the next mission go more smoothly. During camp, we hope to Skype with speakers from NASA or other scientific, medical, military, or industrial organizations that use robots as well as take lots of pictures and videos. The goal is for each team to have an iPad for working through their Mission goals as well as taking pictures and videos (for a total of four iPads, if we have twelve students). But, if needed, we could make due with one iPad and multiple SD cards to use in that iPad. Both teachers (aka Master Operators) will have personal video and/or picture devices and will use them whenever the curriculum offers an opportunity. At the end of camp, students will receive a CD (burned using a personal laptop computer) that includes pictures and videos of their Missions so they can relive their interactions with robots in the Robotic Matrix.