We started the week with the students building a robot that would be designed toward the tug of war challenge. This challenge was used as a warm up to give some background in mechanics.
On Tuesday, I taught the students gears and how to effectively use them in order to win the tug of war challenge. We also discussed topics such as the balance and weight of the robot design, and how each could help win or lose the tug of war challenge. Lastly, we talked about making durable and stable robots and how exactly the connector and channel pieces should be used to make a solid lego robot. At the end of the day, we had a small competition to test the tug of war robots. The students were excited to have this competition as everyone was eager to win. At the end of the day, the students asked why this was only a two day challenge. Little did they know I had a more exciting challenge for them the next day.
On Wednesday, I introduced the main challenge, robot golf. Each team had to design and build an attachment that would work like the three basic golf clubs: driver, iron, and putter. With that, the students played a maze like golf hole to test out their attachment. The final challenge was the “long drive contest”, in which students had to hit a ball into a goal. Points were awarded depending on how far away they hit the ball. Wednesday and Thursday was dedicated to building and testing the robot and how effective the robot was at golfing.
On Friday, the students made some last minute touches before the final competition. The students showed off their creations to their parents and did the long drive contest.