As a group, we were assigned to design a robot built of Legos. We were given a kit filled with the Legos that we needed to build an adequate robot, and the kit also included the programming CD for the computer. We are given a board with a large circle around the perimeter and a small circle in the middle, and our robot is supposed to collect the various cans from around the large circle and bring them back to the center circle. We are allowed to use 3 motors, 2 touch sensors, and 1 rotational sensor. Our robot also has size stipulations of 20x20 centimeters. As a group we had to determine which way we wanted to build a robot that we felt would work best under our stipulations and would still adequately finish the job at hand. We used the book from the Lego kit to develop ideas on ways to build our robot. We ended up building our base with directions straight out of the Lego book, and the rest of our robot was built from trial and error. We found many flaws in the first robot we designed, and through trial and error we came up with solutions. First and foremost, our first robot that was designed was a claw-like design, and we could not get the gears to work. We then built another robot that proposed a size problem. The dimensions of this robot was 1 foot wide by 20 centimeters, and our size stipulation was 20x20 centimeters, in which was much smaller than our robot. Our third and final robot was the proper size and had gears that worked. It does not have a claw, it has arm-like devices that act as a guide for the cans it will collect, and it has a touch sensor that when pushed tells the robot that it is holding a can and it then rotates and goes towards the center of the circle.
