Free Computing Resource: Junkbots and Scratch 1

The Junkbots project has been running for a number of years as an initiative to bring sustainability, computing and engineering together by building bots out of junk details of the project can be found at. https://junkbots.blogspot.com/. Junkbot is an extension of the Research into teaching problem-solving going on at the University of Northampton please feel to visit https://computingnorthampton.blogspot.com/2019/01/problem-solving-research-outputs-and.html for more details.

One of the criticism of the robot programming part of the Junkbots project is not everyone necessarily gets a go at the programming. To address this a new feature has been added to the project, using Scratch to play with the ideas. This is the first of a set exercises to play with these ideas. The cleaning robot shown is loosely based on the LEGO Mindstorms RCX.

The commands all in the My Blocks section

Exercise 1: Moving the Robot Cleaner around.:

Now go to https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/384342734 and rewrite the code so the robot moves in a square.

Exercise 2

Now go to https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/384347284 run the code (or try it below) and see what it does. Now alter the code in the RCX sprite to get the robot to push the purple drinks can across the line.

Please share and post comments on either the comments blog or on the scratch projects. It would be great to see how you do with this.

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

Comments

Problem Solving Open educational Resource

Another new Open Education Resource (OER) has been made available by the School of Science and Technology, University of Northampton. Problem-Solving Author: Dr Scott Turner http://find.jorum.ac.uk/resources/19001 Details These mini lectures are intended for undergraduate computing students, for providing simple steps in problem solving before the students learn a programming language. Problem-Solving and Programming is a common first year undergraduate module on the BSc Computing Programme at the University of Northampton. This material was taken from the problem solving part of the module and provides an introduction to five topics in problem-solving. The resource can be found at: http://find.jorum.ac.uk/resources/19001 After one week on JORUM 93 downloads and 12 views of the OER.

Problem-Solving and Creativity in Engineering

Jonathan Adams, Phil Picton and Stefan Kaczmarczyk from the School of Science and Technology, University of Northampton in collaboration with Peter Demian from Loughborough University have recently published a paper in the Journal Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education entitled " Problem solving and creativity in Engineering: turning novices into professionals ". Abstract: Recent UK and European benchmarks for both undergraduate and professional engineers highlight the importance of problem solving skills. They additionally identify creativity as an important capacity alongside problem solving for both novices and professionals. But, how can we develop and encourage these important skills in undergraduate engineers? For many years researchers have explored how the differences between novices and experts might show educators techniques for improving the problem solving abilities of their students. Whilst it is often a...

10 most view post on the problem-solving blog - April 2020

Building an artificial neuron in Scratch Build yourself a Crumble Eggbot from junk Full details at http://bit.ly/2yZ3dZT There was three inspirations for this project ·Eggbot - http://www.instructables.com/id/Plastic-Egg-Bot/?utm_content=buffer9b065&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer ·Femi Owolade supported by Nic Hughes ran a session at Mozilla Festival 2016 using the Crumble’s to make a wheeled robot. ·The junkbot project https://junkbots.blogspot.co.uk/ Kit ·Kinder Egg (without the Chocolate and toy) · Crumble also available at https://redfernelectronics.co.uk/crumble/ · 4x Crocodile clips and leads · Battery pack and 3xAA · Vibrating motor ·Tape (lots of) Free Computing Resource: Junkbots and Scratch 1 The Junkbots project has been running for a number of years as an initiative to bring sustainability, computing and engineering together by building bots out o...

Problem-solving

Search This Blog