For the past 2 weeks in we split into partners built a robot car and discovered how to program it to drive in circles, different directions and different speeds. Building the robot was actually quite confusing even with the directions because of all the different lego pieces that went into it. Besides what is shown a battery had to be attached to the bottom of the car to give it power to move. 

Using a USB chord we were able to input instructions for how the robot should move by using the computer program Lab View and then transferring them from the computer onto into the robot. As my partner and I tried programing different speeds into each wheel we realized that keeping the wheels at the same speed allowed the robot to move in a straight line. When we changed the speed of one wheel the robot would turn in a circle. Another assignment the class got was to see if the robots distance traveled could be calculated before the robot moved. By taking the diameter of the wheel in centimeters and then multiplying that number by .01, so that the number could be converted to meters. Finally by multiplying the product by Pi the final answer gives the circumference of the wheel. The circumference is important because the distance traveled when a wheel does one turn is equal to the circumference. Using LabView the computer is able to calculate the number of times the wheel turns. Telling the computer the circumference of the wheel and multiplying that number by the number of turns allowed by the computer to calculate the distance traveled. My partner and I got these results:

There was only some difference in my and my partner’s results the error is most likely from the diameter measurement being incorrect. In conclusion however it is shown in this test the less amount of power the car has the less distance is traveled.