I guess that this blog should start with a purpose; that purpose is to chronicle the adventure that will be a single credit out of my Introductory Robotics Course at James Fowler High School. This credit was inspired by the 2014 CBE (Calgary Board of Education) Summer gathering title "Design the Shift."
A link to the the assignment outline can be found here. In that assignment, students were originally going to journal about their experiences building the Little Willy robotics platform. In the weeks leading up to the project however, I ran into supply issues with the Little Willy and decided to order Sparkfun's Redbot instead.
The specific kit that I've used includes all of the Redbot kit minus the battery holder, accelerometer board and the Redboard (mainboard). These parts were removed so that they could be used for the Intermediate and Advanced levels of robotics where we focus heavily on sensors and autonomous control of a robot.
In addition to what was in the box, I added a number of items including:2 10K potentiometers
1 SPTD Power Switch
2 PN2907 Transistors
1 Half sized breadboard
1 9.6V RC car battery with an attachment cable and charger
Assorted jumper wires
Some zip-ties
The project begins with a very non-specific set of instructions: "Build a robot chassis that will allow your robot to follow a line of electrical tape on a white table. Write down everything that you do and why you did it in a Google Drive journal. Remember that it is ok to make mistakes as long as you are sure that you can undo them. (beware of glue, 2-sided tape and electrical fires)...Begin!
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