Bell Brick Bots 2015 !!!

It was a great three weeks of Lego Robotics at Bellarmine this summer. In this, our second year of camps, we filled all three weeks and saw many more girls sign up for the camp.  With a revised curriculum, and a generous number of iPads and EV3 Robots, we cultivated a hands-on approach  in order to learn about design thinking, engineering, and programming.  A truly STEM-oriented set of topics included how gears work, binary numbers, the nature of light and sound using sensors, wavelength and frequency, echolocation, sequential programming, conditional statements, loops, functions, and switches.  Campers solved real problems while programming and driving robots through a variety of courses and challenges, using Lego's new iPad EV3 Programming application, which allowed them to create and test their programs seamlessly on their PVC courses that they built.  Looking forward to 2016!!!

Week 3 - Day 5

On Day 5 campers designed and built BattleBots!  The BattleBot needed to be able to accomplish three goals: knock over the opponent's flag, knock over the opponent, and knock the opponent out of the arena.  Each of these goals is worth one point.  The team who gets three points first wins the round.  Campers divided into builders and programmers.   The builders got to work designing and building attachments for their robots and the programmers had to create a program to allow the robot to roam the arena and attack the opponent.  Competitions were both automated or programmed and human-driven.  Fun was had by all!  At the end of the day, campers received their official Bellarmine Brick Bots diplomas.

Week 3 - Day 4

Today campers used loops to program their robots to navigate a course and return home.  Using sensors and motors, the robot had to find its way to the end, turn around and come back.  Using switch statements, campers created a line-following program, to teach their robot to follow a line.  Campers also built robot soccer fields, and used their iPads as remote controls for their robots to collect the "ball" and push it to the goal.  We talked about the difference between a human-driven robot, and a robot that uses programs to accomplish tasks.  Tomorrow, we'll create BattleBots that will fight on their own!

Week 3 - Day 3

On day 3 we introduce conditional statements and learn about how a robot uses it sensors to detect light and sound and use those phenomena as information.  Campers program the robots to stop and turn using the ultrasonic sensor and the color sensor.  We learned about the nature of waves and frequency using different-colored Slinkys to show how the robot's sensor differentiates color.  At the end of the day, we asked "What if we want the robot to keep going?" Tomorrow we'll learn about loops...

Week 3 - Day 2

On the second day of week 3 we got our feet wet with more sequential programming and used Hopscotch to learn about programming concepts that campers then applied to their EV3 Robots using the Labview programming environment.  Campers built PVC courses and ran their robots through a series of turns in order to reach the end of the course.  We began discussing sensors and binary numbers in preparation for day 3.

Week 3 - Day 1

Week 3, Day 1 got our budding roboticists off to a great start with another round of design and revise exercises.  This time, campers designed a robot by sketching it and using the creative bricks to build it.  They then passed their designs to their neighbor, who then had to build it from the sketches they created.  The results were enlightening - and we discussed the challenges of using the designs of others to construct robots and other models. We met Alpha Trion, who taught us about programming and using sensors to make decisions.  He used his ultra-sonic sensor to stop before he ran into walls, or campers! We looked at robots performing functions, like these at the BMW car plant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R46x6k2wieU.  Next we began learning about sequential programming with the Mindstorms Labview environment, as we programmed our robot to travel certain distances before making a turn.  Finally, the 6-foot robot made another appearance as campers learned to program using psuedo-code.

Week 2 - Day 5

Battle Bots!  On day 5, campers designed and programmed robots to use their motors and sensors to  fight in the battle arena.  Using their knowledge of conditional statements and loops, they programmed the robots to automatically navigate the arena and attack when near objects.  Points were scored by overturning opponents, knocking over opponents' flags, or pushing opponents out of the arena.