Curriculum+and+Project+Ideas


 * Curriculum and Resources**

There is a sample curriculum below for a one quarter 6th grade class with objectives and activities below the resources and projects. You will find an overview of the curriculum for Robotics I, II, and III as well. The Robotics II and III curricula have to be more flexible because students who have not had Robotics I or II may enroll in Robotics II and III.

The Mindstorms software comes with the Common and Complete Palette exercises that are excellent for beginning robotics students. The teams can work at their own speed and are encouraged to experiment. I have my students keep a very simple record of their progress through the challenges. The students like to show off their robots.
 * RESOURCES**
 * Mindstorms NXTs**
 * (The school website is being updated and most of the links here are not working. Please email me at jo.vanvliet@gmail.com and I will send you copies of the document, videos, etc.)**

There is also a more advanced Robot Design, Build, Program journal document attached that my students use once they begin designing robots "from scratch" to solve problems and challenges.

Robotics Engineering I Introduction to Mobile Robotics and Robotics Engineering II, Guided Research, CDsf from Carnegie Mellon. These links let you see lesson and resource samples. These CDs have been very helpful for my classes. The CDs provide materials, lesson plans, videos and PowerPoints for a 3 and 6-week curriculum. Many of the materials (projects, exercises) would probably be useful additions to any curriculum you've already developed or are using, like the great Common and Complete Palette exercises that are part of the Mindstorms software. The PowerPoints are editable so you can modify them for your curriculum.

RobotC .pdf sample of the RobotC curriculum and projects on the Carnegie Mellon CD

Using Function trees, morphological charts, and analysis matrix - A professor from Georgia Tech and two students very generously gave an afternoon to help our robotics team understand how to use these tools in problem solving and decision making. One of the team members videoed most of the presentation and did a great job - even including the sound effects of munching Doritos. The video is about 20 minutes long. Their information is excellent and is improving the quality of our robots.


 * PROJECTS**


 * Middles School Computer Class or Club project ideas**


 * ButlerBot** Challenge - The robot must go pick up the cup, then go find the dark line and follow it to the bin with LEGO pieces"water", tip the bin so the "water" pieces fall into the cup, take the cup to the red "table" (just electrical tape), stopping on the first edge of the red table. Optional - robot says, "Good morning!" when it delivers the cup of water to the red "table." A .pdf file of the instruction sheet is attached at the bottom of this page. The board is half of a 4' by 8' white board that you can buy at Home Depot, etc. for under $25.00.

Three Challenge boards based on **Jim Kelly's Mayan Adventure** book.


 * ExploreBot**

The robot has to go down low, narrow (18" high and 15" wide) "dark" winding tunnel release a pressure pad so that the archaeologist can open the door of the Mayan king's tomb. The robot must return to the entrance of the tunnel. A .pdf file of the instruction sheet is attached at the bottom of this page. Again, the board is half of a 4' by 8' white board. The sides are foam board pieced together with duct tape. They can be easily folded for storage.

Link to video of this challenge Once you've gained entrance to the throne room, you see a booby-trapped floor. Across the room is a bowl on top of a pressure plate. Above the vase is a beam with a large hook on it. In ancient times a spider monkey would have scrambled across a vine and dropped pebbles into the vase until its weight triggered the pressure pad and disarmed the booby traps. Your NXT will take the monkey's place. You have already lassoed a rope from your side of the throne room to the large hook. Now you have to build an NXT that will ravel along the rope, carrying a pebble and drop it on command into the bowl then come back for another pebble. Hint: It is very quiet in the tomb. A .pdf file of the instruction sheet is attached at the bottom of this page. Again, the board is half of a 4' by 8' white board.
 * StringBot**

The mission of the robot is to go down the narrow (15") tunnel and gently retrieve the scroll and return to the tunnel entrance. A .pdf file of the instruction sheet is attached at the bottom of this page. Again, the board is half of a 4' by 8' white board. Jim Kelly recently published a sequial to The Mayan Adventure, called The King's Treasure. It has more excellent challenges and robot design ideas. It is very well written and easy for both teachers and students to understand and follow. One feature I really like about it is that he gives directions for the challenge setup elements. The kids can build these(if you have time in your curriculum). This is good training for older FLL team members to prepare for FTC teams where you often build your own field elements.
 * GrabberBot**

My students have also enjoyed SumoBot challenges. They have to create a robot that weighs no more than 11 pounds and is less than 12" x 12" x 12" (although you can alter these requirements as you wish for your class.) We make a 3'8" diameter circle from electrician's tape on half a 4 x 8 whiteboard. Their mission is to be able to push the opponent out or flip the opponent. This is a great competition for encouraging them to learn about and use gears and/or arms effectively. The Lafayette LEGO Robotics Club have developed a very good description of SumoBot competition and rules at cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~andy/LAFLRC/**Sumo-Bot**_**Rules**.pdf. This document is also an attachment at the bottom of this page.
 * Sumobot Competitions**


 * Robot Races**

You can run this as a single or double elimination challenge. I give candy or game day coupons to the winners. On a 4' x 8' white board or 8' (or more) long piece of heavy duty vinyl (The white board is better!) make two lanes/lines about 20-24" apart, using three strips of black electrical tape. One strip of tape for the start line. You'll also need two pieces of foam board or heavy-duty poster board for the ultrasonic to "bounce" off and for the touch sensor to hit. Two robots line up at the start line. The robots must follow the dark line to within 24 cm of the foam board at the far end of the tack. The robots have to turn around and come back to the start line where they touch another piece of foam board and stop, turn three times, and shout, "Hooray!" .A .pdf file of the instruction sheet for a simplified version of this challenge is attached at the bottom of this page. . NXTPrograrms.com is another website that provides great robot examples with building instructions and code. Students can follow the directions, have success building the robot and then modify both the design and code. Often doing one of the robots from NXTPrograms has given them confidence in design and building and inspired them to come up with their own original designs, build, and programs

The LEGO EdWest site has some good tutorials and designs @http://www.legoedwest.com/news.php?item.15.5

Good design ideas which might inspire project ideas.


 * Projects for Science**

The Vernier site @http://www.vernier.com/nxt/ provides designs, explanations, and videos of NXTs using their NXT sensors that include current, salinity, pH, low-g accelerometer (used as tilt sensor), conductivity, UV, temperature probe, and magnetic filed sensors.

Video of acidity tester in action


 * FTC - FIRST Tech Challenge and Tetrix**

Our Upper School robotics team is working with the new Tetrix robotics kit this year. It's sturdier and stronger than VEX and offers a lo of build challenges. We are learning RobotC and using it in the last few weeks of the Middle School Robotics III classes.


 * CURRICULUM**

Overview of our current robotics curriculum: Each team of two creates an independent robot project that requires original design and commented programming. The quarter ends with an NXT robot version of a LeMans race.
 * Robotics I** In Robotics I, students begin defining what a robot is and how robots are useful. They try to determine what design a robot should be and what sensors it will need based on its assigned task.They learn to break a problem down into basic behaviors a robot can accomplish, create a flowchart for a simple program, and program their robot to execute the task. They build a basic NXT tribot and complete the exercises in the Common Palette to practice using various sensors, loops, forks, and a manipulator. The teams then pick an extra challenge for their robot to accomplish and change its design and programming to master that challenge. They end the quarter with robot races.
 * Robotics II** In Robotics II, students work in the Complete Palette in Mindstorms NXT to learn more advanced programming, including loops within loops, multiple forks, using variables, range, math, and logic blocks in their programs. They also learn about gear and pulley assemblies and gear ratios in order to make their SumoBots stronger and their RacingBots faster.

Robotics III students must develop an independent challenge that requires more advanced programming, a manipulator, and possibly gears or one of the Venier or HiTechnic sensors, They are expected to keep an informal technical journal that includes the statement of their robot's mission, pseudocode for the mission, designs for their robot, and a record of their progress, successes, less-than-successes-, and improvements. To be honest, these joournals are not always as complete or detailed as one might wish! (-: Moving beyond the NXT icon-based programming language, they learn to write a simple program in text-based RobotC and note what they like and don't like about text versus icons in their journals. Each class plans their own race course and challenges for the end of quarter races.
 * Robotics III**

Please feel free to add your curriculum before or after this one.


 * Robotics Curriculum for 6th Graders at Pace**

We have about 35 class meetings per quarter. We use Carnegie Mellon Mobile Robots Robotic Engineering, the LEGO Mindstorms Complete Palette and booklet, Jim Kelly’s The Mayan Adventure, and other books and web sites as resources.

Learning Objectives Be able to define what a robot is and how robots can be useful. Start this discussion by asking students to give examples of robots and what they do. What makes them a robot? Homework assignment: Find a picture and article about a real-world robot, bring it to class, and tell the class about the robot including what sensors the robot uses and why it’s better for a robot to do this job than a human. What are the areas where this robot needs to be improved?

Be able to define what programming, pseudocode, and flowcharts are. Using some of the Carnegie Mellon materials we discuss complex, simple, and basic behaviors and how they relate to getting your robot to do something. Teams of two are given a task, like making buttered toast and orange juice for breakfast or taking off slippers and putting on sneakers. They have to break the task down into basic behaviors. Then one person acts as the robot and performs the commands as the other team member reads them. The rest of the class watches and listens to hear and see if a step has been left out or two steps have been combined.

Be able to create and modify a flowchart for an NXT program. I introduce flowcharts, why they are helpful and how to create them. We do two simple ones together in class, using the Carnegie Mellon material examples and others that I just make up. The students then create a flowchart on their own based on a simple behavior they are assigned, like robot goes forward two feet.

Be able to use NXT programming software to program a robot to use various sensors. Be able to understand and appropriately incorporate forks and loops in programming. Be able to design, construct, program, and test a robot that uses different sensors to accomplish given specific tasks. (We start them with the Common Palette for these objectives. It seems to be a good way for them to pick up the basics of programming, building and sensors at their own rate.) We go to the Mindstorms program and look at all the icons and how to change their properties, save and delete files, etc. They use their flowcharts to help them create a simple program that they save to put on their robot later.

Then the students get the NXT kits. The first thing they do is name their robot. (My students really like seeing the name they choose on the NXT’s screen.) We go over how to use the materials in the Common Palette challenges. They are given the Common Palette Robotics Class Programming Checklist (attached at the bottom of this page) on which they record their progress through the challenges and how they’ve experimented with the new tools they learn at each step. Then the teams work at their own pace on the challenges. The “rules” are that in building they take turns by page in the instruction booklet and can either switch every two screen in the basic programming or one student does one program, the other team member does the next program. When they complete “Hit the Red Ball”, we video them and give them AirHeads. (We try to get videos of as many other of their challenges as we can and have them explain what their robot will do and how it will accomplish the goal.)

Be able to evaluate, and modify and modify the design and programming of the robot to improve its performance. Given a general problem (Robot must follow a line to retrieve a box and return the box to home base, for example.), be able to work together to develop a robot that will accomplish that task. After completing the palette challenges, students can pick from a challenge on the current FLL competition table or from several challenge boards we’ve set up on 4’ x 4’ white boards (an 8’ x 4’ whiteboard is under $11 at Home Depot. They will cut it in half for you.), using electrical tape and props as needed. Some samples are listed below. Before they start, we go over the Design, Build, program Journal (attached below). They have to write a short description of their robot’s Mission, list the basic behaviors, list any limitations (width of path, “water” hazards, lack of light, etc. that are part of their challenge, and then they talk about and sketch different design options. Finally, they rate their options based on robustness, how well it works, speed, doesn’t break, ease of programming, ease of building, and maneuverability. Having decided on the best design they can build, program, test, modify, etc. until the robot is performing as they envisioned (They usually get it to accomplish the task they set for it.)

Before they go to another challenge, they have to have the robot repeat the challenge successfully 7 or 10 runs.

The last week and a half, they build robots for the races (attached below), race in a double-elimination competition, then take apart the robots, and get the kits in order and parts counted for the next quarter. If they do a good job of organizing the kits, they get to watch iRobot and have popcorn. Or, when we can coordinate schedules, the FTC team brings their Tetrix robot over, demonstrates and then lets the students drive the Tetrix