Robotix Lab

Today Thalia, Meena and I worked on the Robotix lab. In this lab we had to create a robot that could go forward, then pick something up and then move back again. Thalia and I built the robot with 4 different engines and wheels, and Meena built the arm. however, meena's arm was to heavy for the motor, and couldn't pick anything up because it was a scoop and not a clamp. I revised it byu making a clamp sort of thing with 2 engines and 2 scoops. The arm was able to lift my clamp, but before I could attach it to the robot, 2 things happened. 1) we ran out of time, and 2) The arm and clamp and engines all came appart!! This relates to the robotics key point because it really showed how each part is it's own function. We had to make a robot that could move forward and back and then an arm that had up and down motion and then a clamp that had 2 parts, a part moving one way ( from right to left) and another moving the opposite way at the same time (left to right). We used 6 different engines just to complete just 2 simple tasks, moving forward and backward and picking something up. I learned a lot that I think will be useful for mission to mars, for example, the motors are not very strong, you need to make what they are lifting and the weight of the arm as minimal as possible. Also, if there is something very heavy resting on wheels or something, it is good for you to reinforce the conection between the wheels and the body of the robot. You really wouldn't want the wheels of your rover to pop off while you were exploring the surface of mars!!