The Animal Allies Robot Game has fifteen (15) different tasks. But the first is the most nefarious: how to move a Lego shark and tank past two thick black lines, turn, and then deliver the tank smack dab in the middle of an angled box partially blocked by barriers.
The first trick is to use the light sensor attachment on the robot to detect the intensity of reflected light as the robot passed over various features on the map. But how to move across a dark green image without mistakenly counting it as a black line.
Each week, we were given 4 or 5 different programming tasks to perform. The following are examples:
WEEK #3 TASKS:
(1) Move forward and then stop on a black line.
(2) Move forward and stop on a second black line.
(3) Move forward at speed 30, to first black line, then speed 20 to second black line, then speed 10.
(4) Move forward and stop only on the yellow line.
WEEK #4 TASKS:
(1) Move forward to wall, switch to reverse after touching wall.
(2) Move forward to wall, turn 90 degrees at wall, move forward.
(3) Forward to black line, follow line.
(4) Follow curved line.
WEEK #5 TASKS:
(1) Move past first black line, then follow curved line.
(2) Return robot to base after following curved black line.
(3) Design/Use sky hook.
(4) Design/Use scoop.
(5) Design/Use claw.
We could then use these basics to program the robot to perform the tasks for the Robot Game. For example, we needed to know how to make the robot follow a curved line so that it could perform the "Milking Automation" task. But we didn't try to get the robot to find the curved line from base -- that came later. Instead, we wanted to know if the robot could successfully push the milking machine lever. And it did! Unfortunately, the "poop" also came out. But that is a fix for another week.
PROJECT // 02
PROJECT // 01
Using state-of-the-art Lego Mindstorms EV3 Robotics, and snacks of questionable nutrition, team Redstone Robotics Incorporated has attained the seemingly impossible task of bringing five 5th graders together for non-sports or video-game-related tasks.
RECENT PROJECTS
The image above shows the nested loops required to get our robot to move past the two black lines -- ignoring the green compass rose -- and then turning to then push to shark tank into the box. Max points were obtained by keeping the shark within the tank from tipping over. We kept the speed at 20 to the first line, then dropping the speed to 10.
The robot was programmed to move forward a certain amount of time to push the tank into the box, then back away, turn and then reverse at max speed back into the cover of the map where we could again touch the robot to reprogram it for its next task.