Robot Copycats (or Matching Graphs)

I knew from their graph what would happen, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. When the students saw the robot go fast, then slow in segments 2 and 3, they commented “It’s opposite.” … And sure enough, they were then able to correct the issue themselves with no intervention from me.

This summer, I reprogrammed the Scribbler 2 Robot from Parallax Corporation to be a physics apparatus.  (I intend the robot project itself to be the subject of a future blog post.). In this post, I describe three similar lab-practical exercises with the robots. In all three tasks, students programmed a robot with a graphical user interface so that it’s motion matched another robot. In the first, students programmed their robot with a position vs. time graph so that it matched one programmed by me. In the last two exercises, they programmed a robot with one graph (position vs. time or velocity vs. time) and the second robot with the other.

Giving Robots (and Students) a Head Start

“So we should just play with this, then!”

This summer, I reprogrammed the Scribbler 2 Robot from Parallax Corporation to be a physics apparatus.  (I intend the robot project itself to be the subject of a future blog post.) This lab practicum is the student’s first opportunity to program a robot themselves. Each group is given two robots, one programmed in advance by me that students studied in their first robot lab, and a second one which they must program themselves through a position vs. time graphical user interface. Students must understand how a position vs. time graph describes motion in order to get the robot to complete the assigned task.