Panther Robo Art

Big Idea: To Create gyrating robots which make random and colorful art patterns with their marker legs.

Dates: Monday, April 17th, Wednesday, April 17th, and Wednesday, April 24th

Participating: Panther Boys and Girls Club

Attendance: 8 Panther teens plus the Panther kids to view

Software: Cricket Logo Blocks

Hardware: Laptops, transfer crickets, crickets, motor connectors, motors, light sensors (optional), flashlights (optional)

Materials: Legos, foam board, Dixie cups, crayola markers, hot glue, glue guns, power drill, 7/16th drill bit, zip ties

Directions: Start by cutting two foam boards or peg boards of the same dimension. Connect the two pieces of board with Dixie cups fusing them together with hot glue. Drill small holes at the corners of the board to place the markers which will serve as legs for the robot. To secure the markers, hot glue them to the bottom of the the robot's top after they are fit through the holes. The zip ties are used to hold the cricket and lego motor in place. On the top surface of the robot we placed the lego motor with spinning motion modules. The spinning creates a swinging motion which makes the robot gyrate. This movement makes the robot move and dance. Once the robot is complete, the kids have a chance to decorate the top surface personalizing their creation. To test the robots tape a large sheet of paper to the floor, remove the marker lids and turn the robots on. For more programming, add light sensors to the robots and make thier movement light sensitive to flahlights. Also, the teens loved putting all the robots in a confined arena and seeing which ones would knock ove the other ones. See the pie network for our inspiration for this project:
http://www.pienetwork.org/ideas/?Idea=61&s=0&search=paint

Associated Concepts: Observing the patterns made by each different style robot and each different program.

Best Part: High attendance, great interest and involvement. The kids learned to write cricket programs which we use for most of Design IT projects. Also the battle royal between the bots when confined to small quarters. When we invited the younger kids from the club to view our work, they got the mst kick out of that. We named and numbered the bots and started betting who would win. It got nasty and exciting and very fun.

Worst Part: None on my watch.

Improvements: Adding more steps or activity challenges to the project, or bringing in more decorative material.