LEGO MINDSTORM ROBOTS

Gentiana Spahiu

Lego Mindstorm Robots

Technology is ‘almost’ just another word for many of us, until we are introduced to some practical aspects of it. We rarely think of how    most of the appliances or machineries we use today are build. How or what kinds of applications run many of our cell phones, computers,   ATMs and numerous more devices. We take things for granted and go about life until the next ‘big hit’ comes along.

The two past science classes we worked on Lego Robots, not the ones you find at Toy’s R US for children, but rather toys for adults. We were provided with a building kit which included parts of different size and functions as well as a mini computer piece which was the CPU of the car we were to build. The activity was engaging as we were to assemble the car together based on the instruction manual and make it ready to use. The challenging part came when we were required to utilize an application named “Lab view” to create moving patterns for our Robot-Car.

Under the instruction, help and supervision of the professor we put together a program which ‘ordered’ the car to move based on predetermined patterns. The Lab View was a little challenging for me because other than not having used it before, it offered many options which could easily get one lost. Together with my team we were able to replicate a ‘program’ for the car based on professors requirements, which made the Robot –Car to move forward, backwards, break,

play a song while moving and also to go in circle. Another challenge for the group was to make the car drive in a one meter radius circle forwards and backwards. This activity required us to figure out the different speeds that the car wheels had to turn in order for it to complete the one meter radius circle. Another task for us was to measure the distance traveled by the car and also figure out how the distance was related to the number of turns the wheels made. To make us understand the usefulness of Lab View we were asked to manually measure the distance by calculating it according to the formulas provided and compare it with what the predicted outcome of the application stated. Interestingly, the results were quite similar taking in consideration the human error by manually measuring the distances.

This activity made me think how sometimes we take discoveries for granted and how unaware most of us are in regards of the amount of work it goes into creating and building technology so that our lives would be more convenient.