June 1st Meeting

June 1 Meeting Notes

From the Coaches

All, sorry it has taken so long to get this posted.  I have been crazy busy at work and at home.

At the meeting the kids were introduced to the light sensor.  In actuality the sensor that we have is a color sensor, but it can be used as a light sensor.  They had a lot of fun playing with it to get it to do what they wanted.

From the Children 

Light Sensor

Today we attached a light sensor and created a program that displays the value from the sensor on the robot’s screen. The sensor wasn’t put on the robot very well, so we modified the attachment to make it sturdier. Using the light sensor and program that we created, we found that the lighter color gives the higher value. Then we experimented with different lighting conditions to see how the lighting affects the light sensor.

Challenge

Our challenge was to make the robot follow a black line. First we had to calibrate the light sensor. We had problems getting this process to work the way we thought it should.

On the first try, the robot burst forward, then stopped. It seemed to turn when the sensor came off the black line (move forward, check, move forward). We changed the light sensor block to be less sensitive (we changed it from lees than 16 to less than 25).

On the second try, the robot only moved when the light sensor was seeing white, so we changed to move forward until it sees white.

On the third try, the motor continued until the sensor detected white. We discussed how to get the robot to follow the black line. Problem: when the robot goes off the black line which way do you turn? Solution: when the sensor sees black, turn a little to the right; then we know the robot went off to the right and we have go left to get back on the line.

On the fourth try, the robot did not turn back to the black when it hit white.