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=Team Name:= The Black Holes =Team Symbol:= =I. Team Members Names (First Only)= (Team members should rotate between building, programming, testing, and working on the wiki. Each member should contribute to the wiki on their OWN computer.)

Ty Jake Alex

=II. Instructions for Challenges=

A. For each challenge you must write a short description of the challenge using complete sentences. Please write in 3rd person, scientific writing. B. This is where you should include your programming code by including screen screen shots. You should place all multimedia on [|photobucket.com] and then incorporate it into the site using the embed code. C. For each challenge you must provide some form of multimedia exhibit. This would be images, a short video, an interview, etc. You should place all multimedia on [|photobucket.com] and then incorporate it into the site using the embed code. D. For each challenge you should provide a written explanation of the difficulties encountered with the challenge. = = = = =III. Challenges (Template)=

Copy this section for each of your challenges:

DATE: 4/?/2009
Title of Challenge: A. Description (Short Paragraph): B. Programming Code (Picture and Written Explanation): C. Multimedia: D. Difficulties Encountered/How You SOLVED the Challenge! (Paragraph):

DATE: 4/21/2009
Title of Challenge: Point Turn A. Description (Short Paragraph): The goal is to program the robot to first ride 25 cm forward. Then, it will rotate 180 degrees on the same point to the left. Finally, it will back up 10 cm. B. Programming Code (Picture and Written Explanation): In this picture, there are three different movements programming the robot to do the challenge. These are represented in the three movement blocks. The first block makes the robot go the 45cm forward in length. The second one makes the robot rotate on the same point 180 degrees; the steering was varied until it rotated the actual 180 degrees. The last block makes it back up 10 cm. The challenge is then completed. C. Multimedia:



media type="custom" key="3707261" Video 1: The footage of Challenge 1

media type="custom" key="3713053" Video 2: An explanation of the program code and the problems for challenge 1.

D. Difficulties Encountered/How You SOLVED the Challenge! (Paragraph): There were 3 main difficulties in the process of completing the challenge. These corresponded with each of the commands; there was an error for each command at first. The problem for the first block was getting it to go 45 cm; there are no units in the program used. The numbers were fooled with until the robot finally reached a distance of 45 cm. The problem with the second block was getting to only turn 180 degrees; it was almost always too much. The numbers were again changed by a small amount until it was exactly 180 degrees. The problem with the third block was very similar to the others; it was getting the robot to go the 10 cm and not more or less. The ability to make it go backwards was fine; it was just getting the distance right on these as well as the other commands that were difficult. The solution was to again fool with the numbers until it was exactly 10 cm.

DATE: 4/23/2009
Title of Challenge: Square A. Description (Short Paragraph): For this challenge, the robot had to follow a box. The robot's program had to make four 52cm sides with three 90 degree turns. B. Programming Code (Picture and Written Explanation): Figure 4. Program code for Challenge 2.

The code told the robot to go 52cm on the blocks that said CB and 90 degrees on the blocks that said B. The CB tells both wheels to go forward and the B blocks tel the C wheel to stay and the B wheel to go.

C. Multimedia: media type="custom" key="3707243" Video 3: The footage of Challenge 2

media type="custom" key="3712955" Video 4: An explanation of the program code and the problems for challenge 2.

D. Difficulties Encountered/How You SOLVED the Challenge! (Paragraph): There were not many problems other than not going 90 degrees on the turns. These problems were solved by guess and check.

DATE: 4/24/2009
Title of Challenge: Backing Up A. Description (Short Paragraph): In this challenge the objective was to make the robot go 52 centimeters straight, do a 90 degree turn and back up while making a beeping sound. B. Programming Code (Picture and Written Explanation): The code used was fairly simple, but had difficult distances. First the robot went forwards for rotations (programmed in block one) and then the center of steering was temporarily changed to go rotations and do a 90 degree right turn (programmed in block 2). Then, the robot beeped and backed up at the same time, as can be seen in the last two commands of the picture. C. Multimedia: media type="custom" key="3707269" Video 5: The footage of Challenge 3

media type="custom" key="3712981" Video 6: An explanation of the program code and the problems for challenge 3.

D. Difficulties Encountered/How You SOLVED the Challenge! (Paragraph): The main difficulties encountered were distance involved. Mindstorm measures the distance traveled in rotations of the wheel, not centimeters. Because we were using centimeters to measure distance that the robot had to travel, the measurements had to be guessed. This was a lengthy process, and might have been easier done by measuring the perimeter of the wheel and dividing the distance that needed to be traveled by the perimeter of the wheel. This would have been a much shorter process than guessing and checking the numbers.

DATE: 5/4/2009
Title of Challenge: Create a basic obsticle course and program your robot to navigate it. A. Description (Short Paragraph): In this obstacle course, the robot first has to forwards, then make a 90 degree turn to another section. Here the robot makes a 90 degree bank turn, drives forward at a slant a bit, then does a hexagon turn. Going here it goes to a slant back around, does a banked right turn, and fininshes backing up, ending with a dance. This was refferred to figure 2 B. Programming Code (Picture and Written Explanation):



This program code showed that on a clap start the actions with the first orange block. When the code said CB, that told motors, or wheels C and B to go forward for a certain amount of rotations. When the block said either C or B, it told that certain wheel to move, but it told the other one to stay still. At the end, there was music playing and the robot danced when someone clapped repeatedly, just for finishing decoration. This is shown at the end with the orange brackets. One thing that is not shown clearly in the blocks is the backing up at the end; instead of going forward and stopping at the end of the track, it went backwards and then stopped.

C. Multimedia:





D. Difficulties Encountered/How You SOLVED the Challenge! (Paragraph): The most difficult part was the requirement that the robot had to start at the sound of a clap. This was the sound sensors job, on the side of the robot (Figure 7). We finally got it to work by making sure it was detecting the right port, and it detected much louder noise (we turned the detection volume up). Another hard part was the trail around the hexagon (Figure 6). This was hard to follow, with the many hard turns and different distances. It was solved finally by a lot of guess and check.