Mentor Hours 8

Today I got to work with the Boe-Bot! The Boe-Bot is a basic robot kits that a majority of beginners in robotics first work with to get them started. Here is a fully constructed Boe-Bot that my mentor already had on display in his workshop:

I'll get to construct my own Boe-Bot from scratch later on once I receive my kit.

Since I don't have my own kit yet, I started working with the software that comes with the Boe-Bot. The book that came with the Boe-Bot is actually quite thick, but has really simple instructions and explanations that made it easy to learn the coding. The book wasn't very intimidating once I actually started reading it. I learned how to program the bot to do certain things such as blink its LEDs or turn only one wheel at a time. I was introduced to the BASIC coding language that the Boe-Bot uses to receive instructions. I was able to learn different functions such as "DEBUG", "PAUSE", "LOOP", "DEC", "CR", "PULSOUT", and "DO". I think this was the coolest thing I've done so far. It was awesome just typing in a few lines into a computer and pressing F9 to make the robot do what I've told it to do. I even got the Boe-Bot to do math! It was really fun getting to program a robot for the first time.

Hours Earned: 2 hours

Total Hours: 16 hours

Mentor Hours 7

Yesterday I got to start working with the Snap Circuits. I simply sat down with the kit and its booklet and starting from experiment number one. I made several different circuits.

The circuits either made an LED or a small lightbulb light up, or it made different siren or laser type noises through the speaker. The Snap Circuits were extremely easy to use and build with. The booklet included pictures as well as short paragraphs that explained how or why something worked the way it did. The easy building made it easier for me to focus on the concept instead of the construction. It helped me understand why the bulb would only light up if I put a certain piece this way or that way, or how the speaker made different noises depending on how much current and resistance there was. I think playing with the Snap Circuits was really fun. It was kind of like electronic Legos. It was a nice way for my mentor to introduce me into electronics without making me use an actual circuit board at first.

Hours Earned: 2 hours

Total Hours: 14 hours

Mentor Hours 6

On Friday I met with my mentor for only an hour. Since I finished the puzzle solving kits we just discussed what projects I could do next. I told him I wanted to work with the Boe-Bot, one of the most common starting robot kits. He also said I could do some experiments with the Snap Circuits as well as the "adult" version of Snap Circuits. I went home with the Boe-Bot book and the book for the basic electronic circuit kit to look over the weekend.

Hours Earned: 1 hour

Total Hours: 12 hours

Mentor Hours 5

Today I went back to the workshop and finished making the balloon-powered race car. There was one more piece that required glue that I was unable to put together yesterday so I had to spend time waiting for the glue to dry. Eventually I was able to put all of the pieces together and create my race car:

The main difficulty I had was making the hole for the balloon tube the correct size. First it was too small, then too big, and just plain difficult. Afterwards, the wheels became a huge issue. The wheels that were included are only made out of thick, index card-like paper so they're very thin and not very stable. The natural wobbling motion that the wheels did constantly caused the car to slow down a lot. I spent a majority of my time tinkering with the car to try and get it to roll straight and farther. Once I had done all I could think to do, the car still only went about 5 or 6 feet, but I considered it a success because my first run only went about 3 feet. Plus, watching my car roll for just a little bit was pretty cool knowing that I had made it from almost scratch.

I think my mentor gave me these puzzle solving kits to get me to think harder and in different ways. The kits definitely did their job and forced me to think. Both projects seemed simple conceptually, but once I got started things got complicated quickly. I think these kits were a nice way to get me started. Next visit, my mentor is going to get me started on projects that now involve real electronic parts or some experiments with the Snap Circuits.

Hours Earned: 2 hours

Total Hours: 11 hours

Mentor Hours 4

Today I went back and began constructing the race car kit. This kit was a lot more complicated and had a lot more supplies included. It took me a lot longer to figure out a design this time too. Because of the complexity of the kit I was unable to finish the race car in just one sitting. I also had to glue pieces of wood together which needed to dry overnight.

I spent the first half of my visit basically playing around with all the different parts and trying to come up with a design I think would work. Then I spent the second half gluing wood and cutting holes again. In two hours I only managed to create the separate components of the race car.

I put together the basic frame of the race car, each set of wheels and the piece that would hold the balloon. That was all I was able to accomplish today since the glue needs to dry. Tomorrow I'll put together all of the parts and finish the race car. This activity really forces me to think about design and mechanics because the concept of a balloon-powered car seems really simple, but it's just turning it into a reality that gets complicated.

Hours Earned: 2 hours
Total Hours: 9 hours

Mentor Hours 3

Today I finished reading the two books my mentor gave me to read about the Snap Circuit kit. One of the books was the Student Guide and the other was the Experiment Handbook that contained the instructions for the 101 experiments possible with the kit. I found both of the books to be extremely informative and easy to understand. The kit is labeled for ages 8-108, and I fully enjoyed the fact that it's pretty much for anyone. The books were full of colorful pictures and diagrams and simple definitions of key terms which made everything much less intimidating. The authors also included both real life examples as well as examples from the Snap Circuit kit. Most of the information in the books I had learned last year in Mr. Trautman's physics class, but it was a nice easy review for me. The books made all the information much more interesting than a normal textbook does. I remember I honestly did not like the electricity section during physics class, but this review book helped change my opinion of it by making it a lot less intimidating and a lot easier to grasp the concepts. I think it was a nice way to re-introduce me into electronics and the basic science of electricity, batteries, resistors, switches, and receptors.

After school, I went back to mentor's workshop and began constructing one of the puzzle solving kits. I began with the balloon-powered hover craft and it actually took a lot longer than I expected. I spent a little over two hours constructing this:

It's simply just a piece of styrofoam with a hole in the middle of it, a tube with a balloon attached to one end inside the hole, and an index card wrapped and taped around the whole thing.

It was such a simple design, but it took so much longer to make than anticipated. In my head, the design was pretty simple. I just had to poke a hole, stick a tube in and attach the balloon. Cutting a specific hole into a piece of styrofoam was much harder than I thought it would be. With just a wooden pencil, a pair of scissors, and an Xacto knife at my disposal, I went to work to make my hole.

After the two hours that I spent just making the general design I had in my head, I spent another hour trying to modify it in order to get it to hover a little higher and a little longer with my mentor coaching me through it. He advised me to add the paper skirt in order to trap a volume of air underneath the whole thing in order to get it to float more. After that, it was a matter of observing how the hover craft moved and trying to find the individual imbalances and either trimming that point or adding weight to it.

Although, this particular project didn't specifically relate to robotics, I understand that my mentor knows that he can't just simply throw me into the field of robotics without first making sure I understand the basic electronic components and the basic physics and mechanics of how things move or work together to get a job done. This puzzle solving kit, really helped me review my physics and understand the mechanics of how different parts come together to create one structure. On my next visit I will attempt to put together the balloon-powered race car.

Hours Earned: 4 hours

Total Hours: 7 hours

Mentor Hours 2

I went back to my mentor's workshop and he gave me some starter kits to get me started. The two basic kits aren't necessarily robotic, but the kit basically provides you with various supplies that you have to figure out how to turn into a balloon-powered race car or hover craft. They come with instructions, but you're only allowed to look at them if you're truly stumped. The "ages 10 and up" sticker was very misleading. Although my mentor told me not to actually start building it, he told me to look at all the pieces and come up with a list of tools I would need to construct it. It was a lot harder than I thought. I sat there for at least an hour and spent 30 minutes looking at two kits trying to imagine a race car or hover craft in my mind. He explained to me that working with these kits would help me understand the mechanical part of robotics better and would help him get a better understanding of how I think.

On top of the two puzzle kits, my mentor also introduced me to electronic snap circuits. It's a beginner's circuit board that uses snap buttons like the ones found on clothes in order to introduce the idea of connecting pieces of a circuit board together without having to deal with the tiny parts of an actual circuit board. He explained that although the snap circuits are usually meant for children, some colleges that teach high school level electronics courses use them. So I didn't feel as bad. Plus, the large pieces and variety of colors made the idea of working with circuit boards for the first time look much less intimidating. I did not get to actually start working with the snap circuits, but my mentor gave me two small books about the snap circuits and the projects we could do with them to read over the weekend. There's actually a lot to do with one simple kit. He's slowly easing me into working with actual electronic parts. Next meeting, he will begin helping me construct the race car and hover craft and give me a project from the snap circuits to take home.

Hours Earned: 2 hours
Total Hours: 3 hours