For the past couple of classes, we have been building robots. The process of building the robot was relatively easy, however, making the robot do exactly what we wanted it to do was challenging. When we finished building the robot we had to program it to move in a circle. To get the robot to move in the circle we had to set the speed at which the wheels rotated. To get the robot to move in a large circle, the difference in the two speeds had to be small. To get it to move in a large circle, the speeds had to have a bigger difference. The challenge was making the robot travel in a circle with a diameter of two feet. After a few attempts, we got very close to making it travel in a circle that was exactly two feet in diameter. Then we attempted to make the robot travel backwards in the same circle.

Today in class, we compared our measurements of how far the robot traveled with the measurements the computer got. To do this we first had to measure the diameter of the wheel on the robot and covert into meters. We got a measurement of .2 meters and then multiplied that by pi to get the circumference of the wheel. Next, set the robot’s power to 75 and set it to run for one second. We measured the distance the robot traveled in centimeters and got 32cm. The computer got 31.5cm so we knew our percent error wasn’t large. To get the percent error you must divide the difference of your measurement and the computer’s measurement by the average. Our percent error for this one was .5%. We tried it again two more times after adjusting the time and speed. Each time we got a different percent error.  I think the measurement of the circumference might have been slightly off, which might have caused the percent error.

Building this robot and making it move is relevant to sustainability, energy and technology because we made it move without have to use anything that would be harmful to the environment.  Improving on this kind of technology would be beneficial because it could potential reduce pollution that is harming our environment.