For the past two days, Mrs. Sorrell's Superstars have spent their NXT time building the Star Trek doors and learning to program using the NXT software.
We discussed the different commands, or blocks, of the software. Each block tells the computer in the NXT brick to do a certain command. The blocks we concentrated on are the "move" block, the "wait for sensor" block and the "sound" block. We talked about what happens when we leave out a step in our programming (the robot does not know what to do since it cannot read our minds). The robot is only as smart as the programmer.
Mrs. Levitan then taught the students how to use the light sensor to read the amount of reflected light the light sensor is giving off. The amount of reflected light will tell the robot when to stop the motor when opening the door.
Lots of doors are not built the correct way, which means there is LOTS of problem solving going on, along with a little frustration. Oh, the joys of thinking like an engineer.
More building and programming tomorrow. We are looking forward to it. :)
Continuing to build the whole child.....
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