Robotics project 2.0
After my team made their first robot from a manual and proceeded to modify it by putting tracks and such on it. This quarter however, we were tasked to create a robot from scratch and attempt to make it better at the tasks that the other robots had to do in the past. Of of course this was a team effort with myself and two other people so we all had to use our communication skills to affectingly communicate our ideas. We all also had to have a very generous amount of technology literacy, this was specifically important to Jake as he was doing most of the programming work for the robot.
I think the end product was a lot better than the last robot we did because we already had a pretty good understanding of how this robotics kit works. This meant that we didn't have to work from a manual and had the freedom to build any design we desired. In my opinion the end product was much better than what we did last semester.
The one thing I improved upon the most had to have been communication and teamwork. This semester I saw a pretty great improvement in how I work with other people. In addition to that I found that I was learning a new thing about coding and engineering almost every day that I worked on this project.
Even if the robot works in its current state it's still painfully unfinished. Most of the problems that bug me are only really obvious to someone that worked on that specific robot. For example, the arm has a normal motor instead of a servo and because of this, the arm falls back down after moving upwards. It still works, but not as good as it could be in my opinion.
If I could start over and do this project again I'm not entirely sure what I would or could change. The only thing I can think of is perhaps learning more about coding the Vex-net systems so I could be more of help in trying to fix the problem with the servo motors.
As far as past experiences go I can only relate this to last semester's project and the robotics project I did in the fifth grade. Although I built robots in the past neither of them were from scratch and came from a manual. As far as I'm concerned this is the first robot that I helped build entirely from scratch.
I plan on going to study in college to get my mechanical engineering degree and I should probably expect to be working with a lot of different robotics teams. On top of that I should also be prepared to work with others, friends or otherwise on things like group projects. all of the things that I learned in this project will be put to good use.
I think the end product was a lot better than the last robot we did because we already had a pretty good understanding of how this robotics kit works. This meant that we didn't have to work from a manual and had the freedom to build any design we desired. In my opinion the end product was much better than what we did last semester.
The one thing I improved upon the most had to have been communication and teamwork. This semester I saw a pretty great improvement in how I work with other people. In addition to that I found that I was learning a new thing about coding and engineering almost every day that I worked on this project.
Even if the robot works in its current state it's still painfully unfinished. Most of the problems that bug me are only really obvious to someone that worked on that specific robot. For example, the arm has a normal motor instead of a servo and because of this, the arm falls back down after moving upwards. It still works, but not as good as it could be in my opinion.
If I could start over and do this project again I'm not entirely sure what I would or could change. The only thing I can think of is perhaps learning more about coding the Vex-net systems so I could be more of help in trying to fix the problem with the servo motors.
As far as past experiences go I can only relate this to last semester's project and the robotics project I did in the fifth grade. Although I built robots in the past neither of them were from scratch and came from a manual. As far as I'm concerned this is the first robot that I helped build entirely from scratch.
I plan on going to study in college to get my mechanical engineering degree and I should probably expect to be working with a lot of different robotics teams. On top of that I should also be prepared to work with others, friends or otherwise on things like group projects. all of the things that I learned in this project will be put to good use.