Robot Art Show
Evidence of Work
The task of this project was to code a robot do something cool that shows personal growth between you and your partner. The robot could do anything from just turning on a light to playing an interactive game as long as you show personal growth. My partner was Ava Runao for this project and we worked great as a team together. We programmed our robot to be a traffic light. When you press the red button it would flash the red light for as long as you hold the button down and the word "STOP!!!" would appear on the screen. It would also do this for the yellow and green buttons but the screen would say "Slow Down" and "Go." We learned how to do this by doing a series of Arduino Programming Experiences which took us multiple days. From this we learned why the wires were plugged in to where they were plugged into and we copied down the Code to Note which helped us greatly in our project. The Code to Note helped us actually code our circuit to do the things we wanted it to do. We wrote the Code to Note down in our notebook in a way we could understand. To actually make our Traffic Light, we took different codes from the different Arduino experiments we did and meshed them together to make it do what we wanted to do. Of course, we had to delete some code and add some in which was difficult but it was also super exciting and a great learning experience.
Content
Forces between static electric charges (Coulomb’s Law: F = kq1q2/r^2) - Two static electric charges are proportional to their own charges and inversely proportional. This equation is measured in Columbus (C). This unit is used to find the forces of attraction between static electric charges.
Circuits (series and parallel) - A power source has both positive and negative sides. Circuits are connected from one side of the power source (+) to the other side (-) with conductive material/components used to form a complete loop. Parallel circuits have separate paths for the flow of charge/electrons. Equation: 1/r total= 1/r1 + 1/r2 + 1/r3...
Current (i) - This is the flow of charge/electricity through the circuit. Current can be sent through wires and cords. The current has the choice of pathways. It is measured in Amphes/Amps (A). Equation: v=ir
Voltage (v) - The voltage is the potential energy difference across a component. You measure voltage with a voltmeter and it's measured in volts. In a series the voltage splits between resistors but in a parallel it stays the same.
Resistance (r) - The resistance is the amount of current that is slowed or resisted through an obstacle. It is measured in Ohms (Ω).
Power (Ohm's Law: V=ir) - Power is the rate of transferring electrical energy through a circuit. Equation: P=iv or P=i2r or P=v2/r. It is measured in watts.
Programming and general rules of coding (what were your big takeaways from programming) - I learned a lot from this project. I went into it knowing nothing about coding and programming but in the end I was able to make a Traffic Light. I learned a lot from the Code to Notes we did and a lot by looking over the code used for the Arduino experiments. Reading the line of code was probably the most important thing in this project but it was also probably the thing I struggled with the most. Although I struggled, I saw a ton of personal growth with myself.
Electric Current can produce a magnetic field (such as in an electromagnet) - In an experiment we did (see Electromagnetic Lab Writeup above) we found out that a nail can pick up the most amount of paperclips if the battery has 1.5 volts.
Reflection
This project was really fun but also really hard. My partner, Ava, and I were not skilled in coding but developed a basic understanding for it as the unit went on. I think me and Ava did really good on our collaboration and critical thinking. Since we didn't have a good understanding of what was going on we had to work together to figure out what was going on all of the time and just collaborated together really well. For example, we depended on Mr. Williams a lot during this experiment because we had no clue what was going on, but he wasn't always available. So one of the times we had a question but he wasn't available, we worked to together to try and figure out what was going wrong and figured it out. Our critical thinking was also really good. Since we didn't have a good idea of what was going on, we had to think hard about the decisions we were going to make and look over our work many times to make sure it was right and also made sense to us. An example of us doing this was when we reviewed the code that Mr. Williams ran through with us so we checked it to make sure it made sense to us.
Some things I think Ava and I didn't do so well on were being conscientious learners and communicating. Through out this project we definitely did not manage our time effectively. At first we tried to figure out what wires went where and actually did an okay job about that, but when it came to coding we had no clue what to do. We wanted to ask Mr. Williams for help but he was busy with other groups so we spent a whole day and a half waiting for Mr. Williams's help. After we got his help our project was finished and for a couple days we didn't really do anything. The day before we were presenting our project we realized we needed a circuit diagram and notes saying what the code did so I did the circuit diagram and Ava did the note (another example of us collaborating well together). I defiantly think in our next project I want to evenly plan out what to do on each day and not rush to do it all on one day and also not run out of time. Ava and I also could've worked on communication. We collaborated and worked together really well but our communication wasn't that good. I think me and Ava also could've talked about making a plan and communicated to each other about what to do when so we don't get off track.