When this project was first explained to me
last week, I was convinced that there was no
way I was going to be able to even build the Lego car
let alone the computer software to program the car in
a specific path. However, by the end of class I was
pleasently surprised! My group and I began by
following step- by-step instructions to build the car
out of the Legos. When building the car we attached
the to the NXT pack or the “brain” of the car, however we did not connect the wires
correctly. Because the cable attaching the NXT pack to the motor was not in the correct
position the NXT pack could not send the signal to the wheels of the car to make it move.
This was like a brain without a body. Without the body the brain can send all the signals
its wants, however no action will be preformed. However once we connected NXT pack
with the motor the car moved.
Programming the Lego car to drive in a specified path was a challenge for my
group and I. Our first instruction was to make the car travel in a circular direction for one
revolution with a radius of two feet. It was an easy task to make the car travel forward
or backwards but creating a path that was circular involved adjusting how tight the
steering was as well as the amount of time the car was programmed. If the steering
were too tight, the car would just spin in a very small circle with a small radius, but if
the steering was looser the time would need to be longer. In order to create the
circular path with a two-foot radiu
s we had to set
the steering tightness at 75 and set
the timer for eleven seconds. Our next step
was to reverse the direction, and program the
car to perform one full revolution with a 2-
foot radius. Following that we had to perform
the two previous tasks together. Our fourth
step was to add sound. Our final task was
to create a funky path, we chose a figure eight type shape
that had a top loop just shy of forming a small circle.