Teaching Your Robocar To Move Day 2

Programming a Self-Driving Car Computers are not good at learning They need specific instructions for every situation Engineers must use advanced designs and trial-and-error to make cars drive themselves - Explain a little bit about self-driving cars in regard to programming from an engineer's perspective, such as that computers cannot learn in the same way that people do and instead must be given detailed, specific instructions for what they should do in every situation - Explain that programming involves a lot of trial-and-error, where they try something, see if it works, if not try something different, and keep doing that until it works. Explain that the students will use trial-and-error when programming their own robots.

Demonstration Demonstration of the movements listed in the handout Plug one of the completed robots into your computer, open up the NXT software, and demonstrate the movements listed in the day 2 handout, showing how the different blocks and different settings for a single block change the way the robot moves.

Challenges Challenge 1: Drive into Garage Challenge 2: Back into Garage Challenge 3: One Lap around a Track Bonus Challenge: One Lap backwards around a Track Don't hit the walls! - Explain the 4 challenges as describe in the handout. -- Challenge 1: The robo-car must drive from the start point into the garage without hitting the garage walls (the white lines). -- Challenge 2: The robo-car must drive forward up to the garage and then turn around and back into the garage. -- Challenge 3: Starting from any point, the robocar must go twice around the track without touching the inner or outer white lines -- Bonus Challenge: Starting from any point, the robocar must go in reverse twice around the track - Students who did not finish their robot last time should finish it today and then move on to the challenges. - Distribute the handout to the students. - While the students are working, leave this slide on the projector to give students a quick reference for what they should be doing. - Take pictures of the students working so that you can put the pictures in the day six presentation. Image Copyright © Michael N. Erickson