September 30, 2006
The molecule was dropped in the Motor number of times. Sometimes the battery dropped.
Even though I was watching, I missed the moment when the molecule went in.
When it is off to the side on the mat it is going to be hard to tell that it went through
when the drop is so light that it does not set off the motor.
And then some times the battery is dropped and the molecule is not through.
Junior junior FLL.
Dirt trap moved.
The program that worked at school did not quite work here today.
They got to work and figured out how to tweak their program to work even better.
Magnet slid off.
The NXT bots are LARGE compared to the RCX bots.
Atoms are going to take some extra thinking and practice.
I had suggested trying to have a goal of getting points in three missions in a row for today.
That was accomplished by both a team using RCX and one with NXT.
The NXT is not warming the hearts of those that have used an RCX.
I hear comments such as it is more of a toy.
We did try to use a Bluetooth USB dongle many ways.
I will try to note the short version of what order we were supposed to do.
Turn on the NXT. Set Bluetooth to On and to Visible.
On the Controller at the lower right work area in the NXT software click on the upper left corner.
Click Scan and the computer searches for Bluetooth devices for a long time.
We clicked Scan multiple times before getting one of the NXT.
A list of devices appears in the window on the computer screen.
Select the desired NXT and click the Connect button.
For the NXT that were on the list for the first time, a Passkey window pops up.
Enter a passkey (the default passkey is 1234) and click OK.
I do not know if it is ok for two NXT to have the same passkey.
Changing to another passkey took so long that the time for the connection was up.
Enter the passkey on the NXT and the check mark and make make connection by press the Orange button.
The computer line for that NXT changed from Available to Connected.
The Carnegie Melon Mobile Robots is helpful especially to those that have never touched robotics.
It has movies that can be viewed at any time.
How a line follower can go in circles is easier to explain by running the movie.
"The bot is going crazy." or "The program does not work."
Such comments are often the end of some students thinking. The Mobile Robotics material keeps them going.
Those that have experience find the material tedious and jump to a few places that peak their interest.
Carnegie Mellon CD have come a long way. They are easier to navigate
and have good multimedia for programming such as close ups and dynamic "click here" instructions.
Is robotics in schools going to be training students where to click
or will it be learning how to problem solve where observing the outcomes of their programing
leads to the next step in their thinking?
