Robotics in our Everyday Lives

            When I started thinking about robotics, I thought about how they affected our daily lives. As I soon figured out, they are used a lot more than I thought they were. In fact, I found out that in my town they were using new robot technology to help students learn more about robotics.

            

             One use of robots is in education. For example, my brother's high school recently bought a new robot called "Projo". This robot is used in the robotics class at Randolph High School where it is used as a teacher and a robot that students program during class. There, they program it to do certain actions such as walk, talk, move around, and act like a human. In this particular high school, it is used more like a helpful tool to help the students learn more about programming and robotics. However, in other schools around the world, this robot is used as a teacher for younger students. But, they aren't replacing teachers or teaching a whole class, but rather the kids take turns spending time with the robot as an experiment to see how it effects them. Also, the robot is programmed to mimic human actions. In fact, Sophia Hollander from Wall Street Journal states, " the robots are programmed to... swiveling their heads when students speak, crying out when overeager kids get physical, and gesturing as they talk." This shows how these robots mimic certain actions to act more human like to help the students learn. All in all, robots are very useful in our everyday lives and they are very versatile.

Programming

               Programming is the writing or planning of a program. For the Lego Mindstorms ev3 robot, you would program it using the machine above. For the Mindstorms  ev3 robot puppy, we built the puppy and then had to program it. We programmed it to make the puppy show emotion, eat using the bone we built, pee by lifting its hind legs, and pet it and have it show happiness. The robot consisted of a color sensor and the bone. Once we finished building our robot, we programmed it by pressed several buttons on the machine to make it so that when it sensed that the bone was by the robot's mouth, it would make eating noises.
               When programming it to do these actions, we had to use the machine above. On the screen, it showed various colored blocks that had certain purposes in order to program it. The colors were green, orange, yellow, red, dark blue, and light blue. The green block was the action block which controlled the medium motor, large motor, move steering, move tank, display, sound, and the brick status light. The orange block was called the flow block consisted of simple actions such as start, loop, and wait. The yellow block controlled the sensor attachments to the machine and controlled how they worked. The red block was called the actions block and it controlled the movements the robot would do. The dark blue block was in control of advanced programs such as messaging, Bluetooth, and data logging. Lastly, the light blue block had previously used and saved programs. These colored blocks helped us to program our robot.
                All in all, our group used the colored blocks on the machine. This enabled us to truly bring our robot puppy to life and enabled us to make the robot do certain actions. Without the programming, our robot wouldn't have been able to do the actions that it could.

Our Robot Puppy

For our robot, my group decided to build the robot puppy. We built the robot after a course of three total class periods. After building our robot, the puppy had the ability to complete certain actions. Our robot puppy could "eat" using the red, yellow, green, and blue "bone" shown above. In addition, as shown in the picture above, the puppy could sit back on its hind legs. The puppy also had the ability to lift up one of the back hind legs and "pee" while a little sound effect in the background indicated that it was peeing. In addition, you could pet and press down on the robot's back and it would become happy and jump up and down. Also, the robot could demonstrate emotion that it was happy by the eyes becoming hearts and by jumping up. On the other hand, it could also demonstrate anger by having slanted eyebrows and an angry expression and by making a growling noise. All in all, this was an exciting experience and it was interesting to see our robot come alive from random Legos into our very own robot puppy.

                      This is my group after we finally accomplished building our robot puppy.

            P.S. Patrick was also in our group but he was making a funny face and wished to be removed.

The Mechanics of Catapults

Catapults are devices that are used to propel objects through the air using stored energy. Gravity, tension, and torsion are the forces used to help launch the object into the air. There are three main types of catapults: trebuchets, onagers, and ballistae. All of the different catapults have intricate designs that help make the catapult a strong and effective one.

The first type of catapult is called a trebuchet. This kind of catapult consists of five main parts: a frame, a counterweight, a beam, a sling, and a guide chute. The frame supports the other parts that create a platform where you drop the counterweight. When you drop the counterweight, gravity pulls it down and rotates the beam while the beam pulls the sling. The guide chute guides the sling through the frame and supports the projectile until its acceleration can hold it in the sling. The sling progressively gets faster until it gets released, propelling the object through the air. The trebuchet was best used for launching projectiles over high distances. The angle in which you released it would be higher than the other types of catapults.























The second type of catapult is called an onager or a mangonel. The mangonel consists of an arm with a bowl-shaped bucket attached to the end that carries the object being launched. Upon release, the arm rotates at a high speed and throws the payload out of the bucket, towards the target. The launch angle is controlled by a crossbar where you pull it back to the angle you want to throw it at and then release. The mangonel was thrown at a horizontal angle and was best used for destroying walls. Even though the mangonel was not very energy proficient, people used it for the stronger work at short distances.



The last type of catapult is called the ballista. A ballista is a catapult that closely resembles a large crossbow. It uses a twisted rope as an energy source that produces and stores energy that it uses in order to propel the projectile through the air. This kind of catapult was used to throw darts, spears, and bolts of various sizes with a lot of force and accuracy.

The Challenges Of Honors Freshman Physics

            Honors freshman physics can be very challenging. In this class, we learn a lot of new information that, at times, we have never worked with before.  In addition, we do not have homework, so we have to take the initiative if we want to learn. If we choose not to do extra work out of class, then your grade suffers. Also, we learn more by doing practice problems, rather than reading from the textbook. Additionally, honors freshman physics is not just memorizing how to do a certain problem and doing the same step by step functions. It is more about thinking, rationalizing, and problem solving. We have to learn how to be great thinkers, rather than robots that think the same way and following steps to get the answer. All in all, honors freshman physics is no doubt going to be difficult, if not the most challenging class we have ever taken. But, if we work hard and put in the extra time and effort, we can survive freshman physics.