St. John Tech Club -- Robotics --

1. St. John Tech Club -- Robotics -- March 21, 2012

2. Today • Introductions • Goals and expectations • What is a robot? • Plan your project • Pick your robot kit

3. Introductions • Parent volunteers • Fellow club members • Interests • Goals • Experience

4. Goals and Expectations • Have fun • Make cool things • Learn about electronics, motors, and programming • Develop planning, teamwork, and communications skills • Learn from our experience so we can plan future Tech Club and Robotics programs at St. John • HAVE FUN

5. What to expect • We will be figuring this out as we go • What you should expect from • Parent volunteers • Each other • Yourself

6. Typical meeting schedule • 20 – 30 minutes of electronics and robot design instruction • Majority of time will be spent working on projects: building, testing, programming, competing • If you finish your robot early, we will come up with more activities • Arduino • Soldering • Circuits • Programming • Helping others

7. What is a robot? • Autonomous • Reacts to its environment • Electromechanical Robot: An electromechanical device which is capable of reacting in some way to its environment, and take autonomous decisions or actions in order to achieve a specific task.

8. The Plan • Work alone or in a team • Make a plan that reflects your experience and goals • Pick a robot kit that supports your goals and is within club budget • Ideally, include an element of competition with other club members • Each of you will present what you learned and demonstrate your robot to the club

9. Your Project Goals • Some ideas: • “learn about electronics and how motors work” • “program a robot to follow a line” • “program a robot to solve a maze faster than my opponent’s robot” • “build and program a sumo robot that beats an opponent” • Dream up your own goal for a fun or labor-saving device

10. Picking a Kit • Preferred vendor: http://pololu.com • Working alone: budget is under $40, including shipping • Working as a team: budget is $40 x number of team members. Team of 3 = $120, team of 4 = $160, etc. • Some flexibility on $ if your kit is a little over budget • Programmable robots start around $100 • Your kit selection must be approved. You need to explain how it achieves your project goals • Special review and approval for any soldering and programmable robots

11. Programmable Robots • Usually are Arduino-based, programmed in C or BASIC • Less forgiving than Scratch!

12. Beginner Kit Ideas • All incorporate motors and sensors • Not programmable • Usually just a screwdriver and some snips to assemble. No soldering. • Good intro to electronics and motors. We will dive into how each part works http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/732 http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/76 http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/82

13. Programmable Robots http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1603 • Line tracing, maze following • Sumo battle bots! There is one kit for $240 that has everything to build 2 sumo warrior bots • Check out videos, examine assembly and programming documentation http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/975 http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1602