Robot Around the Moon -
Teacher/Mentor Resource
New Idea:
Students teach their Robots to run in a curved path.
Purpose:
Students have already achieved the task of making their Robots go a known distance forwards and backwards in a mostly straight line. The purpose of this Challenge is to add to their skills the concept and practice of teaching their Robot how to proceed in a gentle, controlled curve.
The Challenge:
The Challenge is to leave the “Earth” (the blue circle on the left below), circle the “Moon” (the nice, heavy, water-filled bottle on the right below), and instead of being “lost in space” and “doing a tour of the asteroids”, the Robot should preferably end up safely back on “Earth” (inside the blue circle).
Constructing an Arena.
Theoretically, it is not necessary to use a pre-constructed arena; a couple of marks on the floor would suffice. However, if the “Earth” and the “Moon” move when they are hit by errant Robots, this can cause the following students much frustration because the Earth-to-Moon distance will almost certainly change, and their carefully crafted programs will not work the second time they run them! After experimentation at several schools, I found an arena just about necessary in practice!
The video below summarises some variations of the Arena that some of our schools used. If you do not like videos, some of this information is also included in the web page below this video.
After experimentation at several schools, I found an arena just about necessary in practice! These are the arena distances I found convenient to use in the classrooms in which I assisted.
If you have access to an A3 printer, this free downloadable “Around the Moon” arena template could be useful.
The free downloadable image of the Moon below could be useful to wrap around a bottle. Because of concerns about breakage, glass bottles were banned and so we used plastic soft drink plastic drink bottles of about 1 liter capacity filled with water. Personally, I used an unopened green lime soft drink bottle, as an opened one was less likely to spill. I used a green one in honor of the old myth (Cecil Adams quotes John Heywood’s Proverbes (1546): “The moon is made of a greene cheese,” (greene meaning new, unaged.) But hey – no need to copy my whimsy, use whatever color you like! The weight of the liquid in the bottle made the “Moon” less likely to move when bashed by errant student Robots. So far, I haven’t had a plastic bottle burst when accidentally trodden on by a misguided student, but it would still be advisable to choose a reasonably sturdy bottle if one is available.
If you have a friend who has carpentry skills, a wooden block of similar size could be a more environmentally friendly option.
Some of the schools we assisted did not have access to an A3 printer. They made their arenas from cardboard, often as a student project. As an example, I constructed an arena from a sheet of black cardboard (I used black because astronauts comment that space appears black) measuring 84 cms. by 15 cms (approx. 33 inches by 6 inches). The blue circle shown on the right side of the diagram below was cut from blue cardboard by tracing round a CD (approx. 12 cms or 4 ¾ inches diameter) – blue because the Earth is called “the Blue planet” because of the amount of its surface covered by water. The “Moon” was cut from green/yellow cardboard by tracing around a jam-jar lid (approximately 765 mm or 3 inches diameter) – green because of John Heywood’s previously quoted “Proverbes” (see above). But whatever cardboard you have left over from your last class project should be fine.
For the cardboard arena, the distance between the nearest points of the blue and green/yellow circles was approx. 61 cms. or 2 feet. I used these dimensions because several arenas can fit nicely into the classrooms in which I assist, and they do not cause problems transporting them from School to School. Apart from these constraints, none of these dimensions is really critical, as long as they do not change during the Challenge.
Students typically took quite a few attempts to get from Earth, around the Moon, and back to land safely back on Earth. The video below shows some (mostly) successful LEGO space voyages achieved by students using older (NXT and EV3) generations of LEGO sets that could, perhaps, help inspire your Robot Inventor students
Extension Suggestions:
Our aim was that every student could achieve success in our tutorials. This meant that we had to provide some extension suggestions for the students who achieved success more quickly. The video below shows more advanced “Around the Moon” variations that students in our past classes found both challenging & fun to achieve.
To explain the “Sufi” reference in the video above, the student who coded the “Sufi dance” into his “Robot Moon Expedition” was inspired by a YouTube “travel” video similar to the one below (some religious references, optional).
Source of Materials
The cardboard sheets can be obtained from an Office Supplies shop or an Art Goods supplier. Since Tasmania has stopped being self-governing, we now use the Australian dollar, and prices of these sheets varies from about $AU4 to $AU6.
Acknowledgement
This site is being built using the knowledge of Chen Ying, Yaya Lu and Graeme Faulkner. All are unpaid volunteers in this endeavor. We have no connection to LEGO, and receive no reimbursement for this voluntary work.