Introductory Workshop Hands-On Exercises

May, 2005
Goals:
Get the experience of building a robot with Legos and identifying and using
motors and sensors.
omplete simple programs with !ilot Le"el of #oboLab
!rocess:
$t the end of the lecture piece, ha"e the class di"ide into teams of % or & people
each. 'a"e each group get a Lego (it.
)a(e one of the Lego (its and show them the #*, a motor, a touch sensor, a
light sensor, and a rotation sensor.
Go through the buttons on the #*. +)his is on a slide in the ,ntroductory set of
slides.-
'a"e them open the bac(s of their #*s, remo"e a battery, and press the on.off
button. #eplace the battery, and put the bac( on the #*. /xplain that this
clears the #* memory so that only the default programs remain in memory. 0e
will use these default programs in the initial in"estigations of the robots they will
build.
,nstruct the class to build the #o"erbot, which is on pages 12213 of the
onstructopedia, which is in each Lego (it.
4nce they ha"e build #o"erbot, hand out the #* 5asics sheet and instruct them
to go through each of the exercises with programs 1, 2, and %. 6ote that they need
to add the light sensor as explained on pages %& and %5 of the onstructopedia in
order to do program %.
'a"e each team go to one of the laptops, bringing along their #o"erbot and their
onstructopedia. 'a"e #oboLab running on the instructor laptop.
'a"e them follow along on their laptops as you wal( them through the process of
downloading the firmware. )hey need to use the onstructopedia as a tent to
co"er the #o"erbot and the ,# tower during the download process.
'a"e them (eep an eye on the progress of their firmware download, while you
ta(e them through !ilot Le"el 1 and !ilot Le"el 2. /xplain that the idea is to
introduce the youngsters to programming their robots in small steps at a time.
6ote that the concept in !ilot Le"el is to do something with outputs until some
e"ent happens with a sensor.
5y the time you ha"e demonstrated how to program the robot with !ilot Le"els 1
and 2 their firmware download should ha"e completed.
6ow show them !ilot Le"el % and see if they can explain what is going on with
the initial program that comes up. 5e sure to point out how they can ma(e their
programs loop.
6ow ha"e them write their first program. 4ne good one to start with is: ha"e
#o"erbot spin until a touch sensor is pressed and then go forward until it sees a
blac( line. )he $rtic hallenge mat can be used for this.
6ow show them !ilot Le"el & and the ability to string together a long list of steps.
'a"e them write a program using !ilot Le"el &. 'ere are some examples:
o !rogram #o"erbot to go in a s7uare.
o 8se the circle on the bac( of the $rctic hallenge mat. 'a"e them
program #o"erbot to mo"e around inside the circle but not lea"e the
circle.
9ou will want to note the difference in the use of the light sensor in !ilot Le"els %
and &. ,n Le"el % it is a wait until dar(er.lighter sensor test +a relati"e test-, while
in Le"el & it is an absolute "alue test. :or Le"el & you will need to show them
how to calibrate their light sensors.