Daily Archives: September 23, 2013

Sustainability, energy, technology

Josh Dion

On Thursday our class went to the Sawyer library for a tour. I took notes about the great resources available at the library.  One of the most interesting things I found out was how much information is available on the online databases Suffolk has purchases. These databases include online text books, eBooks, articles, videos and much more. The lady that showed us around told us the most reliable sources to find information including the Gale virtual reference library.  She showed us how much information is available from just one resource.  I found it amazing how much information is out there and that I had no idea about before this tour.  She gave us tips on how to use keywords to find reliable information online.  Example (+, AND, advance search). I know this information we learned will be very useful in future research topics and studying. She also told use how important it is to cite sources correctly or you could be expelled or prosecuted.   I found out that I can export some of these links and send them to my email which is very useful. I also learned that the 4^th floor has books that can be taken out of the library.  This can come in handy if I have a research project that I want to work on at home.  I found this information overwhelming. I had no idea about the amount of information that Suffolk students have access to and I am glad to find out now instead of when I get my first project.

Sustainability energy technology

Josh Dion

We covered lot of basic things in the first robot lab.  The first thing I did was measure that diameter of the wheel to find the circumference.  The diameter was 5.5cm and to find the circumference in meters I multiplied but 3.14(pi) and divided by 1/100cm to get 0.1727m.

The table below shoes the data I got.

1. The rotation of the wheel compared to how many turns is accurate.  As you can see in the second run at power 50 the wheel rotated once (.98 of a turn) and almost exactly 360 degrees which is one full circle.
2. 1 second= 1000 milliseconds I made the program run for 1 second each trial.
3. I found that 1 turn is around .18m or 18cm which is around 360 degrees each full turn should move the car around .18m

Percent Difference table

To find the percent error I used this equation

(Distance of robot – distance measured/ average of both) x 100= percent error

To find average I used (Drobot+Dmeasured/2)

Table

What I learned

From this lab I learned that the robot does not have the most exact measurements.  According to this program 360 degrees is not exactly one turn.  The percent error is fairly low for this but must be taken notice. I also found that each motor is not the same.  I read that the rotation of each wheel is a little different meaning the robot may not move in strait line.  Last year I used nxt robot software at my high school so this is not very new to me. Overall, this was a fun lab to get to know the program a little and how these robots measure.