We have almost finished the first term of the school year 2008-2009. During this term we had Information Systems or Robotics. Our teacher, Mr. Christodoulo, guided us through the four design cycles and toward building a Lego Mindstorms robot. Unfortunately we couldn't ahieve our goal since the software, Robolab and the tower gave us problems.
What is a robot? Well, here is my definition to what a robot is, A robot is an autonomous machine that has four major parts that it uses to perform tasks. It uses AI and it doesn't need any sleep, it doesn't need a salary and its work is at a high quality and it is all consistent, which makes it perfect for working in dangerous environments in which a human would not be able to survive in. A robot isn't going to be a robot unless it has
all of the following parts, Sensors, Processor, Actuators and Power. Say you give a robot the task of parking in a given space, what it would do is first of all sence what is around it. It would do this with sensors. There are countless sensors in the world such as Infrared Sensors, Light Sensors, Motion Sensors, Heat Sensor, Wind Sensor, Accelorometer, Ultrasonic Sensor, Sound Sensor, Magnetic Sensor, etc. But what this robot might use would be a proximity sensor. What that means is that it would be able to detect how far objects are. Then, that information would go to the processor. The pprocessor is the brain of a robot, it tells the robot what to do. If there is nothing around the robot, the processor might tell the robot to move forward. Over here, the actuators are very usefull. They are what the robot use to move around. These can be devices like arms, legs, heads,The wheels, gears, levers, pulleys,fingers or any other output devices that the processor controls. And then finally there is power. Without a consistent power supply, a robot will not be able to do anything.
To first build the robot, we have to Investigate. I remember that we went to a multimedia lab early this term and we disscussed what the essential components were for a robot. We also watched some videos on Youtube about people building robots, it didn't show them investigating, but at least we knew what we were heading for. We also watched some videos about some of the latest in robotics technology such as Azimo. It was just to give us a general background about robots. I also watched in awe as the robots performed tasks that i thought a robot might not be able to do for about 10 years. When we were done with the investigate stage, we made a huge mistake. On Thursday the 16th of October, we started to create our own robots for the first time. There was a huge mistake that we made regarding what we did on Thursday. We created the robot without actually planning of designing it first. All we did was look at a page that had instructions on it. We followed the instructions until we had built our robot. At the end we had no idea what our robot would do, it didn't have a program and most importantly, our robot didn't have power. Before we started to build our robot, we forgot to put in the batteries so that means that we would have to take the whole thing apart and then reassemble it. We also had no idea what our robot would do because we didn't have a plan. We just did what the book told us to do. The outcome of this mistake? We had to dissassemble the whole thing and actually give it a powersupply. So, we are back where we started. But we learn from our mistakes, and what we learnt was that the planning stage is
very important.
So, with that put aside, lets get to the part where our robot actually starts to look like a robot, the create stage. There was a big problem over here too. We created our robot, but there were some ups and downs, sometimes we couldn't find our pieces and that one piece was a very crucial piece. My group tryed two different kits and finally on the third we got all the pieces that we needed. Then, just as we had our robot made, there was another dead end. The software for our robot wasn't working. Robolab could make programs, but without a tower, we couldn't transfer the program from the computer to the robot. This problem took a long time to fix and still right now its not fully fixed. During this time, we worked on our wikispaces.
We used our wikispaces to show our different stages. It was our way to show the teacher our work. We created many pages and here is what we have done.
Advantages and Disadvantages of RobotsHere are some ways robots can be useful :
Advantages1) Going to far away planets
2) Spying on people in ways people can't move and from views humans can't reach
3) Going far down into the unknown waters where humans would be crushed
4) Giving us information that humans can't get
5) Working at places 24/7 without any salary and food. Plus they don't get bored
6) They can perform tasks faster than humans and much more consistently and accurately
7) They can capture moments just too fast for the human eye to get, for example the Atlas detector in the LHC project can capture ~ 600000 frames per second while we can see at about 60
8) Most of them are automatic so they can go around by themselves without any human interference
9) They can entertain us and help us in certain tasks
Disadvantages1) People can lose jobs in factories
2) It needs a supply of power
3) It needs maintenance to keep it running
4) It costs money to make or buy a robot
Robot LawsLaw Number 1) Not to turn against your creators or any one that is the same species.
Law Number 2) Not to interfere with any devices of systems that are meant to be controlled by humans.
Law Number 3) To follow your program or whatever your creator tells you to do.
Law Number 4) Not to complain about anything and perform you task quickly and with top quality.
Win LogoWe also worked with a program called Win Logo. What it allows us to do is to Control a robot and make various images, both 2D and 3D.
cycle has four parts, 
