Writing The End. As the title fo this post reminded me of the Series of Unfortuant events. The last book is entitled The End, or I think it is. Havne't read it for a while now. Anyway, our last class, we very productively cleaned up the entire room. You can now see both the desk and the floors and the Hogwarts castle, alas has been torn down brick by brick and now resides in pieces, each in its properly labeled bin. We ended up sorting a lot of the LEGOs from the miscellaneous bin and now the bins of sorted LEGOs are practically overflowing.
Then to celebrate the ending of class, we made ice cream, but because our teacher is also a physics professor, we made ice cream with liquid nitrogen. Definently cool.
Well, its been fun, but here is where my blog ends.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Performance Time: Welcome to Hoggy Warty Hogwarts!
The exhibition was exciting. The good part was a lot fo people loved our project, the bad part was that we unfortunantly were unable to see any of the other projects, because we were so busy with the Hogwarts Castle. It was neat how our castle captured the interest of everyone. The little kids, who couldn't quite understand the Room of Requirement or Fluffy's room, were amazed by the fire changing colors when spoken to. Then there was the Voldemort versus Harry battle game that had people anxious to try and beat. One kid came back to battle three times! This battle had both older kids and adults entertained and it made Karishma and I happy to see that other people were having fun with the castle we had created. The funny thing about the room of requirement though, was that your hand needed to be slender enough to get into the door and grab the Potions book. Some adult hands and some teenagers for that matter were just able to fit through, making that task more of a challenge for them than for other people.
The thing we would perhaps take into more account next time when making something like this is that the detail of Harry Potter lore, just may not be as needed. A few things we needed to explain the reasoning behind the contraption or action that occurred because not eveyone had seen the movies or read the book. But that wasn't too bad. For those Harry Potter enthusiast that were there, they were excited about seeing Hogwarts. One girl was able to name every room, just by looking at them. That kinda' shocked me, because I didn't think we'd decorated that well, but she did have a hard time with namming the chamber of secrets until we told her that the creature there was a Basilisk.
The hour exhibition went over quickly and we were slightly late packing up, because there was one more kid who wanted to explore the castle before we put it up. Then taking it down, it only broke into three pieces. We were kinda' fustrated. Taking the structure up to sage lounge resulted in it collapsing into easily six or seven pieces and us repairing it two hours before the exhibition. Oh well. At least we did repair it. Here are some clips from the exhibition.
It was exciting and fun and now I'm tired.
The thing we would perhaps take into more account next time when making something like this is that the detail of Harry Potter lore, just may not be as needed. A few things we needed to explain the reasoning behind the contraption or action that occurred because not eveyone had seen the movies or read the book. But that wasn't too bad. For those Harry Potter enthusiast that were there, they were excited about seeing Hogwarts. One girl was able to name every room, just by looking at them. That kinda' shocked me, because I didn't think we'd decorated that well, but she did have a hard time with namming the chamber of secrets until we told her that the creature there was a Basilisk.
The hour exhibition went over quickly and we were slightly late packing up, because there was one more kid who wanted to explore the castle before we put it up. Then taking it down, it only broke into three pieces. We were kinda' fustrated. Taking the structure up to sage lounge resulted in it collapsing into easily six or seven pieces and us repairing it two hours before the exhibition. Oh well. At least we did repair it. Here are some clips from the exhibition.
It was exciting and fun and now I'm tired.
Monday, December 6, 2010
The Final Days: Busy, Busy, Busy....
These last few classes and work outside of class has been completed with such expectations. The castle has turned out really well. Tommorrow's the big exhibition day. Looking back, I almost think we may have been too detail centric in our Hogwarts castle. When it came to choosing between how things are done in the book and the movie, we choose the book, even though more people have seen the movie. Oh well. It's sure to get some attention even if its not completly understood. So here are some last final pictures and if I remember, I get some video footage of the Hogwarts castle in action tommorrow. Thursday is the sad day, when the castle must be dismembered.
We don't have any pictures of the Basilisk which was finished last night, but I will be sure to post pictures of him from tommorrow's exhibition. Last night we ran into technical dificulties, when we put on the Basilisk's head and realized he now couldn't fit through the doorway. So that is also one reason why we don't have pictures of him. He wasn't completly decorated until last night.
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| Potions Books, can anyone say "Half Blood Prince." These will be found in the Room of Requirement and one of the tasks is to retrive a book before the door closes. |
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| Harry Potter of course! |
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| Voldemort boo, hisss. |
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| Banners to decorate the great hall. Each of the Four Houses, Hufflepuff, Slytherin... |
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| Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. |
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| We wanted to include the Hogwarts school crest in here somewhere. It always decorates the wall very nicely. |
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| Fluffy really is fluffy. He doesn't look as ferocious as the one in the movie, but then the danger always comes from the least expected locations. |
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| Our sensor for opening the door is cleverly hidden by my partner Karishma's beautifully handmade rug. |
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Day Eight: Construction Complete
The Tuesday before we left for the Turkey holiday, Karishma and I finished the construction of all the programming and physical construction for the rooms. We finished the sensor for opening the room of requirement and the fireplace to talk to Sirius is constructed and hooked up. That's probably one of the coolest and one of my favorite rooms. When you speak, the light in the fire turns from red to green, like when harry talked to Sirius in the fire in Order of the Phoenix. So that leaves Decor and making this into a Hogwarts castle. Finding a stuffed animal to play Fluffy may pose a problem, but that's the only thing I can think of at the moment that needs attention. We'll find something, it just may not be the perfect Fluffy. Even if we end of making a sock puppet. Hey, that's not a bad idea. The Great Hall needs to be hung with the House Banners, and the fireplace room could use some Gryffindor cheer.
Anyways, here are some pictures of the bare rooms in our castle.
That's our current progress update. Little more than a week and we'll be presenting the castle at our class exhibition. I'm excited!
Anyways, here are some pictures of the bare rooms in our castle.
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| This is the box-ish fireplace. You can see the light inside. It will change colors from red to green, when spoken. One of mine and Karishma's favorite parts to the castle. |
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| This picture was taken outside the room of requirement. The foil sensor in front needs to be tapped three times and then the room will open. |
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| This cricket resides behind the fireplace and powers the light for the fireplace. Of all the switches to flip, this one is the most difficult, because its near so many walls, but its not impossible. |
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Days Six and Seven: Almost There!
I wrote this blog's title and now can't get that song from The Princess and the Frog out of my head, of well. Anyways, this week the castle came together smoothly, or mostly smoothly and we are almost done. Which is good because we have now have little more that two weeks until our exhibition and we'll miss one class because of Thanksgiving break. Karishma finished the programming for the great hall this week, so our Harry versus Voldemorte battle is complete. I won't tell more, because its a surprise. I fixed the supports on the bottom of the second stack of rooms. I tried my best to get the LEGO's sturdy, but when we do move this castle upstairs fro exhibition, we'll have to move it in parts. We acknowledged this from the beggining as the castle grew larger(and heavier), but now its for sure, as long as the castle isn't being moved, the support columns on the bottom should be fine.
So that was Tuesday's work. On Thursday, we moved on to finishing Fluffy's room and the room of requirement. I had one of the room's finished, and then quickly finished the other's construction. We moved the small room, from being on top of the already constructed room and moved it so that it now straddles, part of the hallway. This works better in the overall construction as it helps connect the great hall and the stacked rooms, both constructionally and visually. It definently is more visually appealing. We ran into some issues with trying to figure out how to get the door to open in the room of requirement, but that was solved at the end of class when we found out there was a motor smaller than the one we were using, that went at a slower speed, and so had enough torq to open our LEGO door. That was exciting. So I think we will be in a very good position when leaving for Thanksgiving. When we get back, all that's left is to put in all the accessories and decor; hand banners in the great hall, decorate the room of requirement with stuff, stylize the DADA classroom (this may take thought as to what year we would want it to display), and then to set-up Fluffy and the Sorcerer's Stone. I'm starting on the Maurader Map Instructions this weekend hopefully, if not, I'll finish it over the break. That will be fun to do, I think. Well, here's the pictures from this week.
So that was Tuesday's work. On Thursday, we moved on to finishing Fluffy's room and the room of requirement. I had one of the room's finished, and then quickly finished the other's construction. We moved the small room, from being on top of the already constructed room and moved it so that it now straddles, part of the hallway. This works better in the overall construction as it helps connect the great hall and the stacked rooms, both constructionally and visually. It definently is more visually appealing. We ran into some issues with trying to figure out how to get the door to open in the room of requirement, but that was solved at the end of class when we found out there was a motor smaller than the one we were using, that went at a slower speed, and so had enough torq to open our LEGO door. That was exciting. So I think we will be in a very good position when leaving for Thanksgiving. When we get back, all that's left is to put in all the accessories and decor; hand banners in the great hall, decorate the room of requirement with stuff, stylize the DADA classroom (this may take thought as to what year we would want it to display), and then to set-up Fluffy and the Sorcerer's Stone. I'm starting on the Maurader Map Instructions this weekend hopefully, if not, I'll finish it over the break. That will be fun to do, I think. Well, here's the pictures from this week.
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| Here's one of the cross beams we put in to help keep the support columns from break/bending. |
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| Here's a view of the extended hallway without the stairs. |
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| This is a top view of the door to the room of requirement. It took a while to find the right LEGO piece in which to make hinge for the door. |
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| Here's a picture of the hall with the stairs added in. |
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| Another stairway picture. |
Days Four & Five: What goes here?
Monday was pretty useful as Karishma(my partner) worked on the programming/construction of the epic battle in the Great Hall while I was working through constructing the walls and floors and the supports for our Hogwarts castle. I ran into a little difficulty on building, when I forgot my layout sketch in my room, but I did finish the hallway's floor as well as starting the columns that would support the floor of the room across from the great hall. We're still trying to decide what to exactly do with the area that's across the 'hall' from the chamber of secrets, it may turn into the Potions classroom, not really sure at the moment. Today I didn't get as much done as I'd have liked. Neither Karishma or me could make the crafts store run, due to commitments right after class, but craft materials are not a real integral part of our project, unlike other final projects, so about that I'm not really worried for. Below are some pictures of our progress thus far.
Friday was even a greater leap as I finished extending the floor for the third room(across the hall from the great hall) and built up the walls and ceilings. Forgot to put in a window, but inserted one towards the end of class. So there is our third room, Umbidge's office. So that leaves the Room of Requirement above Umbridge's office and then Fluffy's chamber above that. I'm pretty sure we'll have the rooms skeletoned before Thanksgiving break. Which will be a good place to break. Karishma worked on programing the motor for our epic battle, but the programming was starting to get fustrating as the motor wanted to turn fast one way and then incredibly slow the other. It had something to do with the programming though, because the motor turned fine when you told it to turn this way or that at normal speed. After fixing the programming, we ran into more problems on how to gear this part and our blocks didn't want to line up nicely when connected, so by the end Karishma and I were both fustrated with this part of the project. We'll come back to it on Tuesday. Here's some pictures from today's work.
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| Harry's path to victory. |
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| The mechanism for which Harry Potter will run to defeat Voldemort. |
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| The underside of the hallway and parts of the support columns. |
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| The Great Hall, in the midst of being finished, programming wise. |
Friday was even a greater leap as I finished extending the floor for the third room(across the hall from the great hall) and built up the walls and ceilings. Forgot to put in a window, but inserted one towards the end of class. So there is our third room, Umbidge's office. So that leaves the Room of Requirement above Umbridge's office and then Fluffy's chamber above that. I'm pretty sure we'll have the rooms skeletoned before Thanksgiving break. Which will be a good place to break. Karishma worked on programing the motor for our epic battle, but the programming was starting to get fustrating as the motor wanted to turn fast one way and then incredibly slow the other. It had something to do with the programming though, because the motor turned fine when you told it to turn this way or that at normal speed. After fixing the programming, we ran into more problems on how to gear this part and our blocks didn't want to line up nicely when connected, so by the end Karishma and I were both fustrated with this part of the project. We'll come back to it on Tuesday. Here's some pictures from today's work.
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| Here's one of the supporting columns for Umbridge's office. |
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| A column next to the stand in column(my water bottle) while we fixed a column. |
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| The motor that wanted to be so difficult. :| |
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| Unbridge's office |
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| Another picture of Umbridge's office in relation to the Great Hall and The Chamber of Secrets. |
Friday, November 5, 2010
Day Three: Raise the Roof!!
Today, I finished the ceiling of the Chamber of secrets/floor of the Great Hall, which will be directly on top of the chamber. My partner was absent, so I focused on just trying to get the structure right. I actually just started marking where i'd need to leave opening's in the wall where the windows should go. The ceiling/floor took a little of time, but I enjoy putting this LEGO construction together. I'm really excited for how this project will turn out. Because our project really has more physical contruction than computer/program constructing, we look to have a lot of stuff accomplished. Depending on how my work load goes this weekend, I may try to get in and finish the great hall.
After that is accomplished, we'll only have one more room to complete for the minimum design. Although, I could very easily see us creating five rooms instead of the original three. It'd be really cool if we could get a total of seven with each room featuring a different main event in each of the books then colmenating ina final battle of sorts. We're still trying to find out what/how we'd like to create the final battle, considering it would need to be epic.
Another question for next time is what is the outside of the Basilik going to be covered in? I don't remember who, but one of my classmated pointed out that whatever material we used would need to be able to flex with the Basilisk's jerky movements. Tells you how much I at least hadn't thought about it. If we could find an ugly looking greenish sock, that could work. With my sewing skills I could take it around enough give it some shape, and the sock material would allow the mechanism to stretch and recoil. I don't know, its food for though at the very least.
The sad news is that since I needed to be elsewhere right after class, I forgot to take pictures, so no pictures this time, but I'll be sure to get some for next blog and show how far we've then gone in two class periods. Expect a very boxy great hall/and large creepy basement.
After that is accomplished, we'll only have one more room to complete for the minimum design. Although, I could very easily see us creating five rooms instead of the original three. It'd be really cool if we could get a total of seven with each room featuring a different main event in each of the books then colmenating ina final battle of sorts. We're still trying to find out what/how we'd like to create the final battle, considering it would need to be epic.
Another question for next time is what is the outside of the Basilik going to be covered in? I don't remember who, but one of my classmated pointed out that whatever material we used would need to be able to flex with the Basilisk's jerky movements. Tells you how much I at least hadn't thought about it. If we could find an ugly looking greenish sock, that could work. With my sewing skills I could take it around enough give it some shape, and the sock material would allow the mechanism to stretch and recoil. I don't know, its food for though at the very least.
The sad news is that since I needed to be elsewhere right after class, I forgot to take pictures, so no pictures this time, but I'll be sure to get some for next blog and show how far we've then gone in two class periods. Expect a very boxy great hall/and large creepy basement.
Day Two: And so it begins...
Today was our finalization of plans for the final project. And the project will be...(drum roll) the Hogwarts Castle, complete with large snake in the basement and growlig three headed dog in the upstairs. We designed about five different rooms, to decorate and build, but we can go less or more, as long as we construct mainly the first three rooms in our castle. These rooms contain major events from the books, telling Harry's journey from fighting the 18 year old Tom Riddle to who knows how old adult Voldemort.
Today's Featured Room: The Chamber of Secrets
We started fromt the ground up, building first this room, which will be featured below the Great Hall. It was our first choice due to the fact that we knew most precisely what we wanted to build for this room. We started the skeleton and had all but the roof on this room by the end of class today. Oh by the way, our design will be made majorly our of LEGOS, allowing us to be able to customize the style and shape of the rooms, will keeping them sturdy and easily changeable if something needs to be changed or fixed. The Basilisk skeleton and triggering was completed. It currently looks like a yellow skeleton, but by the time December rolls around, it will sure to be an ugly green grotesque monstrous cockatrice. Brainstormin what to make the snake's skin is slightly hard. Felt would be furry, aluminium foil would be to bright and shiney? We'll think of soemthing eventually.
Picture of Progress:
Great start to our project. I'm really excited as to how fast this first part of the skeleton went up. Not happy with the LEGO blocks that didn't want to come apart and thankful for the LEGO brick separator. It's the greatest tool ever invented.
Below are a few pictures of our progress so far.
Today's Featured Room: The Chamber of Secrets
We started fromt the ground up, building first this room, which will be featured below the Great Hall. It was our first choice due to the fact that we knew most precisely what we wanted to build for this room. We started the skeleton and had all but the roof on this room by the end of class today. Oh by the way, our design will be made majorly our of LEGOS, allowing us to be able to customize the style and shape of the rooms, will keeping them sturdy and easily changeable if something needs to be changed or fixed. The Basilisk skeleton and triggering was completed. It currently looks like a yellow skeleton, but by the time December rolls around, it will sure to be an ugly green grotesque monstrous cockatrice. Brainstormin what to make the snake's skin is slightly hard. Felt would be furry, aluminium foil would be to bright and shiney? We'll think of soemthing eventually.
Picture of Progress:
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| The Terrifying Basilisk-Don't worry, he doesn't have eyes. |
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| The bare skeleton of the Chamber of many Secrets |
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| This shows the outside of the walls, where the supports are so our walls don't just fall over. The square hole is the entrance into the chamber, although that entrance may still change. |
Great start to our project. I'm really excited as to how fast this first part of the skeleton went up. Not happy with the LEGO blocks that didn't want to come apart and thankful for the LEGO brick separator. It's the greatest tool ever invented.
Below are a few pictures of our progress so far.
Day One: The Storming of Brains
I'll just start my counting of days over again. Its the beginning of our final days in Robotic Design Studio. In approximately one month we will have created some kind of final project in which to display our skills. One month, and a few days, and this class will be over. Well, better get started.
Today was serious brainstorming/tinkering around/solidifying slightly more your ideas about projects. When everyone was explaining their ideas today, it seemed like partners were already picked and I'm okay with that. Karishma and I are both huge Harry Potter fans, so if our one HP themed idea is the chosen one:) than we'll both be great on working together to complete that idea. So here are the three ideas that are currently muddled and turning together in my brain.
Idea #1: A Gryphlet
This was my one of my first thoughts when thinking about sensors and a final project. It followed the, "What can I do?" Fantasy is definitely one of my loves and wouldn't it be cool to do some kind of animals and what better than to do an animal that is mythical? Gryphons rank up there for my favorite mythical creature and baby animals are just sooo cute.
Today's further thinking/brainstorming pulled up possible ideas for what this gryphlet could do or sense in the real world and react to. One of the basic, I would like from it would be movement. It would be desirable to have the gryphlet move its feet rather than wheels, which probably be easier, but look really fake then. She movement and the shape of the creature would play major roles in this idea's success. Another idea was to have a button or sensor on its head, so that when it sensed someone "petting" it, it would react with a gryphlet cooing like noise. Don't know exactly what that would sound like, but yeah. Gryphons are known in most legends for guarding treasure of sorts and so the gryphlet could have a necklace or something, that when taken away from him would result in his emminet annoying squawking.
This idea would be pretty neat, interactive, and revolving around a theme that I'm interested in. Thinking up to ideas after this was hard to do, but possible.
Idea #2: Jedi Battle
If not fantasy, why not sci-fi. Lightsabers and battles between good and evil was too compelling to not think about. The idea muddled in my mind for a long time, as I tried to venture away from anything similar to the gryphon idea, trying to open my mind to other options. I jumped from Jedi and Sith to Rock 'um Sock 'um robots and tried to take some ideas from that game's play.
So, this idea centers around two jedi charachters, each wielding a lightsaber. One is good(Jedi) adn the other evil(Sith). How to move the charachters took a little of thinking, but I considered having the charachters hold their respective lightsabers with both hands, then moving one arm or the other to change the angle of the lightsaber. So now the charachterse can shield themselves, but to get in a shot or such, their would need to be a little more movement, so I also considered putting the two charachters on circular platforms, that would be able to move in one direction or the other when a sensor is pressed. So depending on what sensors are activated would determine what action the Sith or Jedi completed.
This idea I fiddled with constructing today,trying to see if I could get a lego construction/skeleton for the arms. This was accomplished, but I couldn't find a good combination or LEGO parts and pieces to allow for a lightsaber to be successfully used. So this idea is not totally out of the running, but most likely not to come out on top.
Idea #3: Castles
I found myself wandering back to the realm of fantasy and the castle setting. Two of my favorite castles include Howl's Moving Castle and the Hogwarts castle in Harry Potter. Howl's Moving Castle(HMC) would be fun to design and create just 'cause it looks so weird and awkward and doesn't look like it should move at all. Then there's Calcifer and the kid (Michael?) as well as Sophie and Howl, really cool charachters that it would be fun to give a part to.
While Howl's moving castle seems lots of comic relief, Hogwarts(HOG) is a more serious castle atmosphere as it plays up to the whole magic, good vs. evil, dark kept secrets, scary/creepy monsters/creatures. HOG would be a serious magical atmosphere that would be a classical sorta' fantasy and no doubt fun to design, create, and exhibit. We could have a barking fluffy you need to calm by given him the right music,(i.e. sound between a certain loudness level)
Both castles allow for ample use of sensors and such with their magical aspects. They also both allow for flexibility in how much sensors and stuff to put together to create the whole project. Only these three scenes or maybe it could encompass these two important rooms that each have a dozen sensors, or have many rooms with one sensor in each. There is a lot of flexibility and with a time set as five weeks, flexibility is a wonderful concept.
These are three really different ideas and the more I think about each one, the harder it seems to have to choose and make a choice. The castle(HOG or HMC) seem to be in the running for top place right now. The fleixbility of size is a very attractive quality in this project. And it could be this factor that decides what final project I do for RDS.
Today was serious brainstorming/tinkering around/solidifying slightly more your ideas about projects. When everyone was explaining their ideas today, it seemed like partners were already picked and I'm okay with that. Karishma and I are both huge Harry Potter fans, so if our one HP themed idea is the chosen one:) than we'll both be great on working together to complete that idea. So here are the three ideas that are currently muddled and turning together in my brain.
Idea #1: A Gryphlet
This was my one of my first thoughts when thinking about sensors and a final project. It followed the, "What can I do?" Fantasy is definitely one of my loves and wouldn't it be cool to do some kind of animals and what better than to do an animal that is mythical? Gryphons rank up there for my favorite mythical creature and baby animals are just sooo cute.
Today's further thinking/brainstorming pulled up possible ideas for what this gryphlet could do or sense in the real world and react to. One of the basic, I would like from it would be movement. It would be desirable to have the gryphlet move its feet rather than wheels, which probably be easier, but look really fake then. She movement and the shape of the creature would play major roles in this idea's success. Another idea was to have a button or sensor on its head, so that when it sensed someone "petting" it, it would react with a gryphlet cooing like noise. Don't know exactly what that would sound like, but yeah. Gryphons are known in most legends for guarding treasure of sorts and so the gryphlet could have a necklace or something, that when taken away from him would result in his emminet annoying squawking.
This idea would be pretty neat, interactive, and revolving around a theme that I'm interested in. Thinking up to ideas after this was hard to do, but possible.
Idea #2: Jedi Battle
If not fantasy, why not sci-fi. Lightsabers and battles between good and evil was too compelling to not think about. The idea muddled in my mind for a long time, as I tried to venture away from anything similar to the gryphon idea, trying to open my mind to other options. I jumped from Jedi and Sith to Rock 'um Sock 'um robots and tried to take some ideas from that game's play.
So, this idea centers around two jedi charachters, each wielding a lightsaber. One is good(Jedi) adn the other evil(Sith). How to move the charachters took a little of thinking, but I considered having the charachters hold their respective lightsabers with both hands, then moving one arm or the other to change the angle of the lightsaber. So now the charachterse can shield themselves, but to get in a shot or such, their would need to be a little more movement, so I also considered putting the two charachters on circular platforms, that would be able to move in one direction or the other when a sensor is pressed. So depending on what sensors are activated would determine what action the Sith or Jedi completed.
This idea I fiddled with constructing today,trying to see if I could get a lego construction/skeleton for the arms. This was accomplished, but I couldn't find a good combination or LEGO parts and pieces to allow for a lightsaber to be successfully used. So this idea is not totally out of the running, but most likely not to come out on top.
Idea #3: Castles
I found myself wandering back to the realm of fantasy and the castle setting. Two of my favorite castles include Howl's Moving Castle and the Hogwarts castle in Harry Potter. Howl's Moving Castle(HMC) would be fun to design and create just 'cause it looks so weird and awkward and doesn't look like it should move at all. Then there's Calcifer and the kid (Michael?) as well as Sophie and Howl, really cool charachters that it would be fun to give a part to.
While Howl's moving castle seems lots of comic relief, Hogwarts(HOG) is a more serious castle atmosphere as it plays up to the whole magic, good vs. evil, dark kept secrets, scary/creepy monsters/creatures. HOG would be a serious magical atmosphere that would be a classical sorta' fantasy and no doubt fun to design, create, and exhibit. We could have a barking fluffy you need to calm by given him the right music,(i.e. sound between a certain loudness level)
Both castles allow for ample use of sensors and such with their magical aspects. They also both allow for flexibility in how much sensors and stuff to put together to create the whole project. Only these three scenes or maybe it could encompass these two important rooms that each have a dozen sensors, or have many rooms with one sensor in each. There is a lot of flexibility and with a time set as five weeks, flexibility is a wonderful concept.
These are three really different ideas and the more I think about each one, the harder it seems to have to choose and make a choice. The castle(HOG or HMC) seem to be in the running for top place right now. The fleixbility of size is a very attractive quality in this project. And it could be this factor that decides what final project I do for RDS.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Day Eleven: Homework- Real World Sensing
I need to list ten sensors on Wellesley College campus. The hard part comes with the rule to avoid simple switches (i.e. light switches, etc.).
10. The photocopier/scanner has a sensor of some sort that senses the darkness of whatever paper its copying.
9. Itouchs and Iphones have some sort of sensor that detects when your finger is pressed against it.
8. There's a door in the science building that if left open for too long will start to make a really annoying sound. Some kind of sensor would be counting once the door is opened.
7. I think this counts, but whatever sensor senses when you swipe your ID to get into a building or check out books at the library.
6. The electric pencil sharpener at the library senses when a pencil is placed inside it to be sharpened.
5. There's some sensor that if you walk out of the library with a sensitized book, the alarm will go off.
4. The electronic stapler at the library will sense when something is below it and will staple. It's more probably to staple your finger this way then using a normal stapler.
3. Smoke Detectors sense when smoke is in the air or when someone's burned their popcorn in the microwave.
2. Cooking thermometers sense heat and how hot something can be. In my dorm, theirs a couple of girls with thermometers that do a little cooking in the kitchen.
1. Lastly, In the gym, the elliptical machines sense when the pedals aren't going fast enough, and then will proceed to pause your workout.
Why do I feel this should have been a easier list to compile. There seems like their should be so many sensors in our world, why was it hard to come up with only ten?
10. The photocopier/scanner has a sensor of some sort that senses the darkness of whatever paper its copying.
9. Itouchs and Iphones have some sort of sensor that detects when your finger is pressed against it.
8. There's a door in the science building that if left open for too long will start to make a really annoying sound. Some kind of sensor would be counting once the door is opened.
7. I think this counts, but whatever sensor senses when you swipe your ID to get into a building or check out books at the library.
6. The electric pencil sharpener at the library senses when a pencil is placed inside it to be sharpened.
5. There's some sensor that if you walk out of the library with a sensitized book, the alarm will go off.
4. The electronic stapler at the library will sense when something is below it and will staple. It's more probably to staple your finger this way then using a normal stapler.
3. Smoke Detectors sense when smoke is in the air or when someone's burned their popcorn in the microwave.
2. Cooking thermometers sense heat and how hot something can be. In my dorm, theirs a couple of girls with thermometers that do a little cooking in the kitchen.
1. Lastly, In the gym, the elliptical machines sense when the pedals aren't going fast enough, and then will proceed to pause your workout.
Why do I feel this should have been a easier list to compile. There seems like their should be so many sensors in our world, why was it hard to come up with only ten?
Day Eleven?: Auto Threshold Sensing
As we get closer to our final projects, some considerations to remember is that the lighting in the classroom is not going to be the same as the ouside, the hallway, or the exhibition room. So if some sensors are operated by the light being a certain amount lower than the 'normal' light number than they may not work in all environments. This challenge addresses this problem.
We needed to develope a set of commands that would be able to tell if a shadow passes over the light sensor and this program must work in different environments without changing the program each time.
We pulled the picoblocks together and got this in the end.
We told the sciborg to look at the light when its immediantly turned on and set that value to n. Then if the sensor increased by one hundred or more, it would beep, because it would sense the shadow.
Our program worked well in the classroom and then it also did well in the hall. When then took the sciborg outside. We turned him on and didn't get the same result when we waved our hand in front of the sensor to create a shadow. It took us a few minutes to realize we hadn't started running the program yet. Once we hit start, it did work and we were so excited that we had completed this challenge pretty much on the first try.
We needed to develope a set of commands that would be able to tell if a shadow passes over the light sensor and this program must work in different environments without changing the program each time.
We pulled the picoblocks together and got this in the end.
We told the sciborg to look at the light when its immediantly turned on and set that value to n. Then if the sensor increased by one hundred or more, it would beep, because it would sense the shadow.
Our program worked well in the classroom and then it also did well in the hall. When then took the sciborg outside. We turned him on and didn't get the same result when we waved our hand in front of the sensor to create a shadow. It took us a few minutes to realize we hadn't started running the program yet. Once we hit start, it did work and we were so excited that we had completed this challenge pretty much on the first try.
Day Scratch: It's Raining It's Pouring
Today we learned about a new program, its called Scratch. Unlike the Pico program and the PicRDS programs, scratch allows for non-physical reactions. Like if a button is pressed, on screen a cat will jump or something. So its a little different from what we've previously messed with. It was oodles of fun figuring out the different possibilities with this program.
This wasn't the only thing we did in class though. We also learned about making our own 'sensors.' We had alligator clips and craft materials and our imaginations. Our sensor was looking for conducticity. We had three different pieces of felt soaked with varying amounts of water. Each piece had a different amount of conductivity. The dry felt being the least conductive, the drenched felt the most conductive, and the third damp felt was a medium conductive.
One clip was tapped to the foil wrapped plate and the other clip was attached to the fuzzy pipe cleaner pen. When the pen is touched to the varying degrees of water soaked felt, it will receive different readings. To make a small illustration of this, we created a program so that we had a cat, that was walking along and over head he had some clouds. If the pen was touching the dry felt, there would be white fluffy clouds. If the pen touched damp felt, the couds turned grey, and if it was the drenched felt, the clouds would be black thunderheads.
Our cat had clouds follow over his head. Below is a picture of our cat in the sun.
This wasn't the only thing we did in class though. We also learned about making our own 'sensors.' We had alligator clips and craft materials and our imaginations. Our sensor was looking for conducticity. We had three different pieces of felt soaked with varying amounts of water. Each piece had a different amount of conductivity. The dry felt being the least conductive, the drenched felt the most conductive, and the third damp felt was a medium conductive.
One clip was tapped to the foil wrapped plate and the other clip was attached to the fuzzy pipe cleaner pen. When the pen is touched to the varying degrees of water soaked felt, it will receive different readings. To make a small illustration of this, we created a program so that we had a cat, that was walking along and over head he had some clouds. If the pen was touching the dry felt, there would be white fluffy clouds. If the pen touched damp felt, the couds turned grey, and if it was the drenched felt, the clouds would be black thunderheads.
Our cat had clouds follow over his head. Below is a picture of our cat in the sun.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Day Nine: Too Fast, Too Heavy: Classroom Drift
K2, our dragster, went under serious remodeling during this class period. He lost one front wheel, a lot of heavy LEGO blocks, a few gears and the weight was placed nearer the ground in the front. All of these modifications were the end results of a few different experiements.
Second Design: Take a few blocks off of the dragster, giving it a triangular shape as one wheel was removed. Elongating the frame, gave a little more space, taking away the necessity of piling the PICO cricket, motor, and weight all next each other really close. Here, spreading out these components helped.
Third Design: The design was moving despite these improvements. We checked the batteries and found that they were dying. Replacing the batteries resulted in a much faster time, by about two seconds.
Four Design: Would making the model longer help? I mean really, really, long, like stretch limo long. We pursued this idea, and timed our weirdly shapped vehicle. This failed miserably we gained about five seconds on our best time. SO we reverted to what we did have that worked.
Fifth Design: This last design modification was in the amount of gears. Our very first dragster had a gear ratio of about 81:1. That went really slow. So we lessened the gears to a 1:9 ratio in the beggining of today's work. During this gear modification, we changed the ratio to a 1:15 ratio. This worked well and we had a short time. Here is K2 in the final time trials.
We didn't do too bad. We placed as the fastest time. It was really cool, going from 27 seconds to 7.05 seconds. Really exciting. But, in the bragging right time race of all competitive cars, we didn't do as well.
In the time trials, we had the fastest time, but when it comes to a race, K2 placed third or fourth.
Second Design: Take a few blocks off of the dragster, giving it a triangular shape as one wheel was removed. Elongating the frame, gave a little more space, taking away the necessity of piling the PICO cricket, motor, and weight all next each other really close. Here, spreading out these components helped.
Third Design: The design was moving despite these improvements. We checked the batteries and found that they were dying. Replacing the batteries resulted in a much faster time, by about two seconds.
Four Design: Would making the model longer help? I mean really, really, long, like stretch limo long. We pursued this idea, and timed our weirdly shapped vehicle. This failed miserably we gained about five seconds on our best time. SO we reverted to what we did have that worked.
Fifth Design: This last design modification was in the amount of gears. Our very first dragster had a gear ratio of about 81:1. That went really slow. So we lessened the gears to a 1:9 ratio in the beggining of today's work. During this gear modification, we changed the ratio to a 1:15 ratio. This worked well and we had a short time. Here is K2 in the final time trials.
We didn't do too bad. We placed as the fastest time. It was really cool, going from 27 seconds to 7.05 seconds. Really exciting. But, in the bragging right time race of all competitive cars, we didn't do as well.
In the time trials, we had the fastest time, but when it comes to a race, K2 placed third or fourth.
Day Eight: Spinning and Twirling
Today we were given a few things to keep us occupied in class. The first was motion modules and the second, our dragsters. The dragsters require their own blog, so here I will metion the motion modules and our adventure there.
So motion modules are designs that were created by LEGO with instructions on how to build them. So this was probably one of the easier challenges we've had thus far. They were kinda' cool just the same. The first we built was called "Chomper." Like any sane person, when I heard that name I had flashbacks to Land Before Time and the baby T'rex Chomper. Here is our Chomper with his bulbous eyes.
Our second module we built was a catapult. Just by the name we had pictures of cannonballs shooting across the room. We built the contraption, but it didn't quite meet our expectations. I'll let you decide though. Here's our catapult.
So motion modules are designs that were created by LEGO with instructions on how to build them. So this was probably one of the easier challenges we've had thus far. They were kinda' cool just the same. The first we built was called "Chomper." Like any sane person, when I heard that name I had flashbacks to Land Before Time and the baby T'rex Chomper. Here is our Chomper with his bulbous eyes.
Our second module we built was a catapult. Just by the name we had pictures of cannonballs shooting across the room. We built the contraption, but it didn't quite meet our expectations. I'll let you decide though. Here's our catapult.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Day (forgotton): Last of the Sciborgs
I forgot to blog about this earlier, but here's a challenge that we were assigned that goes with our sciborgs.
Challenge six was a sensor challenge. Could we configure the buttons so that motor a is turned on when switch 1 is pressed and is off otherwise as well as motor b is on when switch 2 is pressed and is off
otherwise. It wasn't too hard, but here's a picture of our solution.
The second part to this challenge involved configuring the buttons so that pressing switch 1 reverses motor a on and off and pressing switch 2 reverses motor b. There is a hard and medium difficult solution to this problem. We wanted to at least get this problem done, before attempting to tackle the harder challenge, so we started out creating two stacks to run simultaneously.
Our programming seemed right, but when we tried to test it, the button failed to reverse the motor. So we asked the professor for help. When the professor came over, miraculously the button started working, and so we were like, "It wasn't working before you came over here." So the professor went away and we started to test it again and again it didn't work. The professor came over and it did work. Everytime we tried to test the button without the professor near, it wouldn't work. It was weird and crazy, we don't know quiet what happened. It was like something on Candid Camera.
So after finally getting the simpler version to work, my partner and I stared at the screen and attempted to create one stack in which the whole program would run. We came up with this, but it didn't work if both the buttons got pressed at once, so it wasn't a real success. Here is where we ended.
Challenge six was a sensor challenge. Could we configure the buttons so that motor a is turned on when switch 1 is pressed and is off otherwise as well as motor b is on when switch 2 is pressed and is off
otherwise. It wasn't too hard, but here's a picture of our solution.
The second part to this challenge involved configuring the buttons so that pressing switch 1 reverses motor a on and off and pressing switch 2 reverses motor b. There is a hard and medium difficult solution to this problem. We wanted to at least get this problem done, before attempting to tackle the harder challenge, so we started out creating two stacks to run simultaneously.
Our programming seemed right, but when we tried to test it, the button failed to reverse the motor. So we asked the professor for help. When the professor came over, miraculously the button started working, and so we were like, "It wasn't working before you came over here." So the professor went away and we started to test it again and again it didn't work. The professor came over and it did work. Everytime we tried to test the button without the professor near, it wouldn't work. It was weird and crazy, we don't know quiet what happened. It was like something on Candid Camera.
So after finally getting the simpler version to work, my partner and I stared at the screen and attempted to create one stack in which the whole program would run. We came up with this, but it didn't work if both the buttons got pressed at once, so it wasn't a real success. Here is where we ended.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Day Eight: The Fast and the Heavy
Our second challenge of the day was beggining construction on our dragsters. Our dragsters would need to be fast, but they also need to carry a weight. I think it was about one kilogram. We were given the restrictions of building the entire vehicle out of LEGOs. The strategy/new skill we learned about was gears and gear trains. The motors we used were fast, but not very powerful, so we need to add gears to gain power. When you add more gears you recceive more power, but less speed. The challenge centered around finding the perfect balance.
Every group started out with vastly different designs. We decided upon a rather nondescript car with four wheels and a whole bunch of gears in our gear chain. We had one of the biggest gear ratios in the class.
Here is our intial trial outcome.
Due to the design, we had issues when one button gets knocked slightly and pieces start to fall off. Everything needed to be balanced just right in order for the dragster(K2) to move. We fixed our design problems and tried a second run. We made it to the finish line this time....eventually.
Overall K2 came in second to last in the class time trials. We beat the big red fire truck, but still 27 second was a long time. We have a ways to go. The competitive cars were making it across in about 8-9 seconds.
Every group started out with vastly different designs. We decided upon a rather nondescript car with four wheels and a whole bunch of gears in our gear chain. We had one of the biggest gear ratios in the class.
Here is our intial trial outcome.
Due to the design, we had issues when one button gets knocked slightly and pieces start to fall off. Everything needed to be balanced just right in order for the dragster(K2) to move. We fixed our design problems and tried a second run. We made it to the finish line this time....eventually.
Overall K2 came in second to last in the class time trials. We beat the big red fire truck, but still 27 second was a long time. We have a ways to go. The competitive cars were making it across in about 8-9 seconds.
Day Seven: Tower of Terror Elevator Boxes
We've finally started to play with LEGOs. The task seemed simple enough. Create a box big enough to hold two weighted LEGO pieces. Secure it together using a technique we learned in class (pegs and plates) as well as your own unique design. The strategy to this task came with the second condition your box must encompass. The box must contain the weights and fall two meters to the ground, without breaking.
Two meters doesn't seem that high, but when the LEGOs crashed to the ground, withstanding a two meter drop seems practicably impossible. My first box failed epically when it made its impact with the earth. It was back to the drawing board, but I had a better game plan this time around anyway. I'd try to make the box a little smaller and not as big, hoping that this would allow for it to be a stronger box, less likely to break.
This strategy actually worked well. The second drop resulted in less pieces falling off. I tweeked a few conncections and tried a third time. Third time's the charm and I declared victory. Here's what my box looked like.
Two meters doesn't seem that high, but when the LEGOs crashed to the ground, withstanding a two meter drop seems practicably impossible. My first box failed epically when it made its impact with the earth. It was back to the drawing board, but I had a better game plan this time around anyway. I'd try to make the box a little smaller and not as big, hoping that this would allow for it to be a stronger box, less likely to break.
This strategy actually worked well. The second drop resulted in less pieces falling off. I tweeked a few conncections and tried a third time. Third time's the charm and I declared victory. Here's what my box looked like.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Day Six: Sobriety Test
Poor John Silver the cyborg went out partying and now has been pulled over by the police, who ask Johnny boy to walk a straight line. Can our cyborg complete this task without waving to and fro? Yes, yes he can.
The challenge from last class involved modifiying our earlier line following program so that it would waver side to side as much. We wanted the cyborg to go straight when the line was straight and turn when the line turned. In doing so, we wanted John Silver to detect the line differently.
We told John to go straight, until one of the sensors touched black. Then John would turn in that direction, until his sensor hit white. Then Johnny would go straight again. Here is what the Pico Blocks looked like.
Now here is Mr. Silver walking his straight line, before being released to drive away. Although when he's walking the sobriety line, isn't he technically driving then?
The challenge from last class involved modifiying our earlier line following program so that it would waver side to side as much. We wanted the cyborg to go straight when the line was straight and turn when the line turned. In doing so, we wanted John Silver to detect the line differently.
We told John to go straight, until one of the sensors touched black. Then John would turn in that direction, until his sensor hit white. Then Johnny would go straight again. Here is what the Pico Blocks looked like.
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| The simple directions, left, right, straight. |
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| The overall look at the sequence of instructions. |
Now here is Mr. Silver walking his straight line, before being released to drive away. Although when he's walking the sobriety line, isn't he technically driving then?
Friday, September 24, 2010
Day Four: We're Following the Leader...or the Line.
Today's challenge involved teaching our sciborg, John Silver, how to follow the line. Let's say that he didn't take to this idea. We struggled for a whole class, trying to get John to notice the line, which involved much beeping/chirping and circular motion. John did not want to be obediant.
We were confused as to why our program was not working as we desired. We tried roughly three different ideas, with multiple substitutions within each idea, trying to find the perfect plan, but none of the ideas worked. John Silver just wanted to play ring-around-the-rosie, by himself. Here is the version we finally did get to work after much work.
We realized towards the end of class, that John's disobediance may have resulted in part because two wires were not cut down and so touched each other. Not a good thing.
So second day, we fixed our wires and now the program would run. John would obediently follow a black line marked on a white surface. All is good.
We were confused as to why our program was not working as we desired. We tried roughly three different ideas, with multiple substitutions within each idea, trying to find the perfect plan, but none of the ideas worked. John Silver just wanted to play ring-around-the-rosie, by himself. Here is the version we finally did get to work after much work.
We realized towards the end of class, that John's disobediance may have resulted in part because two wires were not cut down and so touched each other. Not a good thing.
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| These two should NOT be touching. |
So second day, we fixed our wires and now the program would run. John would obediently follow a black line marked on a white surface. All is good.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Day Five: Go Towards the Light
"Don't go towards the light!"
"I can't help it, its so beautiful, ahhhh."
~A Bugs Life
So one of our signed challenges for today and the next class is to get our sciborg, referred to as John Silver, to find the light and approach it. A simple seeming task at first. If we just modify the line following to sense light instead....but it turns out to be a tad more complicated than that.
We want the light to be in the center, between the two sensors, which are on either side of our sciborg, almost like eyes. The light sensors will really rarely want have the same reading, which would equate to the light being in the middle, so instead if the difference between the two sensors is a low number, then that will mean we can go straight. But what happens if the light is between the sensors?
This is were we sorta' left off. How to get the sciborg to reposition himself to get the light ahead of him. After class, I had to do something else, so I practiced my oboe, but then came back to the problem and tried to put the solution of what I wanted in a paragraph. Sensor one is the right 'eye' and sensor two is the left 'eye.' What I came up with was If [S2-S1] < 200 go straight; If [S2-S1] > 200 & S2 < S1 then it will go left; If [S2-S1] > 200 & S1 < S2 then go right. If the sensors have a difference of more than 200 than the sensors are not equal enough to be going towards the light. Then if this does happen and sensor one is getting a light reading lower than sensor two it is being pointed directly towards the light and so we need to correct the direction. Vice versa for if sensor two is getting the more light.
I'll try this next class and see if we can yet teach Johnny boy to find the light. He hopefully won't have the same reaction as the moth when nearing the light.
Second Day--- Success.
"I can't help it, its so beautiful, ahhhh."
~A Bugs Life
So one of our signed challenges for today and the next class is to get our sciborg, referred to as John Silver, to find the light and approach it. A simple seeming task at first. If we just modify the line following to sense light instead....but it turns out to be a tad more complicated than that.
We want the light to be in the center, between the two sensors, which are on either side of our sciborg, almost like eyes. The light sensors will really rarely want have the same reading, which would equate to the light being in the middle, so instead if the difference between the two sensors is a low number, then that will mean we can go straight. But what happens if the light is between the sensors?
This is were we sorta' left off. How to get the sciborg to reposition himself to get the light ahead of him. After class, I had to do something else, so I practiced my oboe, but then came back to the problem and tried to put the solution of what I wanted in a paragraph. Sensor one is the right 'eye' and sensor two is the left 'eye.' What I came up with was If [S2-S1] < 200 go straight; If [S2-S1] > 200 & S2 < S1 then it will go left; If [S2-S1] > 200 & S1 < S2 then go right. If the sensors have a difference of more than 200 than the sensors are not equal enough to be going towards the light. Then if this does happen and sensor one is getting a light reading lower than sensor two it is being pointed directly towards the light and so we need to correct the direction. Vice versa for if sensor two is getting the more light.
I'll try this next class and see if we can yet teach Johnny boy to find the light. He hopefully won't have the same reaction as the moth when nearing the light.
Second Day--- Success.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Day Three: John Silver, the Cyborg
So our last class, we got to play with these creatures called cyborgs, they were like advanced versions of the previous crickets we worked with. They are referred to as RDS crickets. More sensors/output devices could be plugged in. Anyway, when I heard cyborg I had immediate flashbacks to Treasure Planet and the warning, "Beware the cyborg," so I've decided to refer to the cyborg as John Silver.
Our first task was to teach Johnny that once he knocks into something, he needs to back-up. This movement was called The Bounce. This wasn't too difficult.
The next task involved further developing The Bounce to assist John Silver in escaping a corrall of boxes. With a few openings, he needed to get out, The Escape. Here is Johnny in his quest of trying to free himself.
The final task was accomplished in two different ways. Going The Distance (A) involved counting. The RDS cricket would count the rotations of the wheels. So we had Mr. Silver go a certain number of wheel rotations and measured the distance he would travel. From there we just used a proportion to find how many rotations it would take for John Silver to travel 1.5 meters.
Going The Distance (B) was accomplished, not with counting, but with sensing dark and light. We had the sensor on John Silver that would sense the darkness or lightness of the color it was facing. So if we had a dark piece of tape, or light, at the finish line, we could tell John Silver to stop when he sensed the change in light/darkness. We experimented with the distance between the sensor and discovered the closer to the material the sensor is the greater sensitivity to light. So this was good and all, but what to do next.
The final sequence we taught John Silver the cyborg was stayin on the table. If he sensed the edge of the table(the equivalent of darkness) he would stop and retreat from the edge. This sequence caused some issues for us as we tried to reposition the sensor. We wanted it to be close enough to sense the lack of light, but we also needed it in the front, otherwise the front wheels would go off and John wouldn't have time to back up before his rear wheels followed his front. We found the perfect front position for our cyborg and it was a success.
With all the tricks we taught John Silver, its no mystery why he was able to get off the RMS Legacy, with his RDS Cricket programing of course.
Our first task was to teach Johnny that once he knocks into something, he needs to back-up. This movement was called The Bounce. This wasn't too difficult.
The next task involved further developing The Bounce to assist John Silver in escaping a corrall of boxes. With a few openings, he needed to get out, The Escape. Here is Johnny in his quest of trying to free himself.
The final task was accomplished in two different ways. Going The Distance (A) involved counting. The RDS cricket would count the rotations of the wheels. So we had Mr. Silver go a certain number of wheel rotations and measured the distance he would travel. From there we just used a proportion to find how many rotations it would take for John Silver to travel 1.5 meters.
 | |||||||||||
| Here is a view of our PicoBlocks. The number was slightly different as we had just tried | to go downhill and stop. |
Going The Distance (B) was accomplished, not with counting, but with sensing dark and light. We had the sensor on John Silver that would sense the darkness or lightness of the color it was facing. So if we had a dark piece of tape, or light, at the finish line, we could tell John Silver to stop when he sensed the change in light/darkness. We experimented with the distance between the sensor and discovered the closer to the material the sensor is the greater sensitivity to light. So this was good and all, but what to do next.
The final sequence we taught John Silver the cyborg was stayin on the table. If he sensed the edge of the table(the equivalent of darkness) he would stop and retreat from the edge. This sequence caused some issues for us as we tried to reposition the sensor. We wanted it to be close enough to sense the lack of light, but we also needed it in the front, otherwise the front wheels would go off and John wouldn't have time to back up before his rear wheels followed his front. We found the perfect front position for our cyborg and it was a success.
With all the tricks we taught John Silver, its no mystery why he was able to get off the RMS Legacy, with his RDS Cricket programing of course.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Day Two: A Tale of Two Trains
Friday we modified our night bus train so that it would demonstrate two different concepts of triggering. The wheels no longer function for the night bus. Our turning set of wheels now grace two more muggle motives. Here is a clip of our modified train.
The story that goes along with the movement is that our train driver begins her day's work driving the train/subway in a local city. She goes forward, off to do great things, in the morning. When the sun sets and darkness comes, she goes backward, returning home, where she finds peaceful rest until she rises with the sun the next day and begins her journey all over again.
In this version of our train, the light and motor are both triggered with "edge" triggering. When the light sensor detects darkness, the colors will change into the sunset. When it detects light, the reverse will happen. The motor will start when the button is pushed, reverse when pushed again, and then pushed a third time, the motor will stop. In both of these processes, the action happens when the button is pushed. Here's a look at what our blocks looked like.
Now we then also modified our train to show a different kind of triggering, "level" triggering. Unfortunantly, we did not take a movie of this train, but here is the story (that you can picture in your head) of our level triggered train.
Now we have a train driver that does cross country train driving. She starts in the morning going to her destination, driving until it get darks. When the sun retreats from the sky, she will continue a while longer before stopping to rest. When the sun rises, she continues on her way.
In this cross-country train driver, we have the same color changing system of light detection, but our motor is now triggered by levels. When the button is pushed the train will move, but when the button is released, the train will stop. Unless the button is pushed, our train driver is stuck. Here's what these blocks looked like and you can notice the difference between this on/off motor sequence and Squeaky Wheels.
So in recap. In "edge" triggering, the button is pushed and the action comences. If the button is released or held down, the action will still happen at the instant the button is pushed. In "level" triggering, the button needs to be pressed down in order for the train to move. The motor is either on or off.
Our train driver would probably like the "edge" triggering system better, otherwise her thumb could get tired holding that button down, the whole day.
The story that goes along with the movement is that our train driver begins her day's work driving the train/subway in a local city. She goes forward, off to do great things, in the morning. When the sun sets and darkness comes, she goes backward, returning home, where she finds peaceful rest until she rises with the sun the next day and begins her journey all over again.
In this version of our train, the light and motor are both triggered with "edge" triggering. When the light sensor detects darkness, the colors will change into the sunset. When it detects light, the reverse will happen. The motor will start when the button is pushed, reverse when pushed again, and then pushed a third time, the motor will stop. In both of these processes, the action happens when the button is pushed. Here's a look at what our blocks looked like.
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| The left column was nicknamed SqW for Squeaky Wheels and is the sequence that turns the motor on and off. The second column is the Day and Night column. |
Now we then also modified our train to show a different kind of triggering, "level" triggering. Unfortunantly, we did not take a movie of this train, but here is the story (that you can picture in your head) of our level triggered train.
Now we have a train driver that does cross country train driving. She starts in the morning going to her destination, driving until it get darks. When the sun retreats from the sky, she will continue a while longer before stopping to rest. When the sun rises, she continues on her way.
In this cross-country train driver, we have the same color changing system of light detection, but our motor is now triggered by levels. When the button is pushed the train will move, but when the button is released, the train will stop. Unless the button is pushed, our train driver is stuck. Here's what these blocks looked like and you can notice the difference between this on/off motor sequence and Squeaky Wheels.
 |
| The is aptly named the Level sequence, demonstrating level triggering. |
So in recap. In "edge" triggering, the button is pushed and the action comences. If the button is released or held down, the action will still happen at the instant the button is pushed. In "level" triggering, the button needs to be pressed down in order for the train to move. The motor is either on or off.
Our train driver would probably like the "edge" triggering system better, otherwise her thumb could get tired holding that button down, the whole day.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Day One: The Robot From The Dark Side
Today's creature, nicknamed Chugga, performs like a train wheel. Yet it will only turn on when the sensor has been sufficiently darkened. Here is our device in action.
So I guess our wheels would work great on the night bus.
~Kaity
~Kaity
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