RoboFAIL!

Last February 4, 2014, we started making robot designs in the LEGO Digital Designer (LDD). At my first try, I really don’t know what to do. I don’t even know where to find the NXT Brick that’s why I really thank our group leader, Sarah Faith, for telling me where to find it. After finding the brick, I built first the legs of our robot. After building the legs which doesn’t really look like legs, I’ve got a big problem on how to put the brick then I noticed some holes on its side so I found out how. I just continue building its legs then I remembered that I need to use the servo motors so that it’ll be able to move so I have to build it again. At last, I was able to build a robot which is a dog but I know that I didn’t use some of the parts correctly and I know that the robot is not that good for I still have to know more about building robots so that next time, I’ll be better.

In this activity, I learned that building a robot had never been easy but building it seriously and with joy will be better. I found out that you need different skills in doing this activity such as focus, creativeness and knowledge about the function of each part for if you don’t understand them well, you won’t know what to do and you’ll just keep on using whatever part you want. You’ll be surprised because you’ll robot turned out to be totally FAIL.

If you like what you do, I bet that you’ll like the results too. 

My First Try in Programming

Most of us say that programming is really hard to understand for we really need to focus and analyse each problem. Programming is harder than Mathematics. You should check all the possibilities if this turned left or right or if this bumped to a wall and everything. You should be careful on what sensors to be used.

As you can see from the picture above, I got a very low grade on my first try in programming. Wrong set of directions and wrong illustrations is what I’ve done. In my first try, I thought that it will be easy for I’ll just put instructions but I found out that I’m really and definitely wrong. Programming has never been easy. Those instructions are not just simple instructions.  It’s harder than what I thought. I tried to answer it  four times but in that four times, I never got the correct answer. Those sensors have their own function and you should really think twice when to use them. The illustrations should be detailed and you should indicate the every move of the robot. Every single move of the robot is very important. Miss one, then you’ll fail.

Well, that’s just the start and I think I’ll be better next time and that will just happen if I try harder. All we need is dedication and focus to this topic. Don’t treat it as a hard subject for it will just lessen your confidence that you’ll be able to do it. It will just contribute to your fear and you’ll always think that all your answers should be right that can cause a greater distraction for you.  You should think that you could do it and you’ll be able to know the right instructions.

Just remember that  programming is really a hard to understand topic but if we have our great interest to it and if we really try hard, I guess we could be better and we’ll succeed.

Conductors, Semiconductors and Insulators

In this photo, you can see semiconductors, conductors and insulators. The example of a semiconductor here is the plastic container. The examples of the conductors are the frying pan and tongs for they don't block the passage of electricity and you can also use this when you cook on a electric stove for electricity can pass through it. An example of a insulator is the pot holder for it blocks the electricity and does not let it to pass through. This helps us to avoid injuries due to electric shocks.

Aspects of Electricity

There are different sources of electricity. Some of these are friction, magnetism, light, chemical action and pressure. We can use these sources of electricity in different activities. One of this is cooking. We can cook through friction. We’ll use two pieces of woods and rub it together until it forms fire. We could also cook using chemical action found in batteries and vibration using generators. The vibration-powered generators will collect kinetic energy and convert it into electrical energy in order to power things and this generator will work using a battery. This would give power to an electric stove that we will use for cooking. Magnetism could also be a form of electrical energy so it would be present if we plugged the electric stove to the power plug. However, light will be present using solar panels with photovoltaic cells that collect sunlight and converts it to electrical energy. This could also power our electric stove.