Lego Robots

 

 

Directions:  Materials are on the table near the garage door.  You and your partner will need ONE laptop with the robolab software on the desktop. You may choose which challenge you would like to try.  Keep trying until you complete it accurately.  If you finish one and have time remaining, try another or consider the extra credit option.  Keep in mind you probably have some classmates who are "resident experts" and can troubleshoot programming questions.  (In other words, MM can't really help you too much.)

 

The Background:  You and a crew of scientists from Earth are in orbit around Mars.  You send an unmanned rover to the surface to take data.  Your job is to control its movement on the surface remotely, from your spaceship.

 

Challenge I:

Geologists in your crew have identified several desirable rock samples they would like to study more thoroughly.  In order to do this, the rocks must be moved to a central location on Mars so another lander can pick them up and then fire its engines to return to your ship.  Move all four boulders into the taped-off circle so that the lander can be dispatched.

 

Challenge II:

The last time your spacecraft was sent to Mars, it deployed hardware to take ice core samples.  (They look a bit like silver basketball hoops.)  It is hoped that data from these ice cores will provide more information about the history of liquid water on Mars and whether it would be possible to release any from a frozen state in order to support human colonization.  The time has come to gather some of that data.  Drive your rover exactly in between the ice cores so that a radio transmission can be passed to the ship.  Knocking over an ice core will result in total loss of data, so be careful!

 

Challenge III:

Your rovers happened to land in a crater.  This has been fine, even desirable, for data collection thus far, but scientists are interested in seeing what is beyond the crater rim.  Drive your rover up the side of the crater edge without going over the edge or falling off the side.  This will allow for pictures to be taken by your rover.

 

 

Homework:

  1. Document which challenges you and your partner attempted.  Were you successful?  What was the hardest part?
  2. Complete Lego Robots Calculation worksheet
  3. Extra Credit: Create your own challenge and thoroughly document it.  What was the goal you were attempting to reach?  What was the motivation to do so?  What particular skills did you develop or were required that made this a new challenge?  Digital pictures as well as written descriptions are encouraged.