Week 5 in Robotics was all about participants learning how to code their robots to use their ultrasonic sensor. The lesson started with the participants understanding the how to write the code so their robot reacts to its surroundings, whether that be another robot or a wall. So once the basic code was learnt, we could then modify it so that the robot reacts to a couple of different distances. These variable distances made the robot react to the participant getting closer to the robot by making the robot reverse until the participants hand was at a safe distance.

The past 5 weeks was all leading up to the last two weeks of Robotics Capalaba, as the last two weeks of the term will be spent creating and modifying a ‘sumo bot’ for the Capalaba Library Sumo Bot Competition.
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This week in Code Club, it was all about learning how to modify a game on Scratch so that it is exactly what the coder wants. So this week’s challenge was to modify a retro Pong game that includes a 2 player scoring system. 

In Code Club this week participants learnt to code or drive a Sphero (robotic ball) through a maze. The participants started the lesson with learning how to code their Sphero and then participants could either code or drive their Sphero through a maze that was set up by the presenters. The participants found this both difficult and incredibly fun.
 

This week in robotics, it was time for the participants to learn how to code their robot to follow a line. It may seem simple to us, but the robot can’t “see” how a human does. It sees by comparing colours, touches, and distance to see or feel the environment and then act on the code it has been given. For example, if the robot was to follow a black line on a white background, the robot has to use its colour sensor to detect the two colours, move forward and make a decision of “if I see white, turn left” or “if I see black, go right”, essentially moving forward doing a zig-zag on the floor. The participants were definitely up to the challenge.

Well done again participants for rising to the challenges that we set each week and succeeding. ​

​Robotics this week at Capalaba was all about learning how to use the robot’s colour sensor and adding display text to the robot. We started off explaining to the participants the difference between all the sensors that can be added to the robot e.g. touch sensor, gyro sensor, ultrasonic sensor etc. We focused on the colour sensor and using it to differentiate between different colours, then using those different colours to guide what our robot does.
 
After the participants added the colour sensor to their robot, it was their task to drive between two lines that were taped to the floor: a black line and blue line, and stop after reaching the blue line. Once they completed the task (with ease), it was time to move on to learning how to use display blocks on their robot.
 
The display block function on the robot can be used for many different things such as displaying a picture at the end of the code, or the robot can display words on the Lego eV3 screen. This text display is what we focused on in the second half of the lesson. The participants started with learning how to use the display box and what it can display, then it was their task to get their robot coded so that it would display two rows of words, at the same time for 3 seconds. Like every task that we have set for the participants, they nailed it.
 
Next week, in Robotics, we will be focusing on how to code the robots to follow a line.