Robotics without Electronics

Thursday, June 28th, 2012
10:30am - 11:00am

The second topic we discussed with Mr. Casaburri was about robots: what they are, how they are used, rules incorporated with them, and how to build them.


Activity - Robot Arm Challenge:
In this challenge, we were given materials (jumbo craft sticks with holes and metal brads) and asked to make a robot arm.  We were told that the best arms would have a shoulder, elbow, and wrist.

My creativity wasn't really shining through today,


but other people had some great ideas!




Mr. Casaburri suggested continuing the lesson and making it more complicated by giving the students plastic forks, spoons, cups, etc to use and give them additional challenges such as 'How much material (e.g. plastic beads) can you pick up with your robot arm?




Activity - Robotic Finger:
This was a very simple activity thatwas only made out of a piece of paper (or cardstock) with a template, and a piece of string.
We rolled up the template (following the instructions printed on the page), taped the roll into a tube, cut out triangles (from the template), and added a piece of string that ran through the middle of the finger.



By pulling the string, we were able to bend the finger at the joints (the triangles that we cut out).

We could put multiple fingers together to make a hand!




Activity - I Want to Hold Your Hand:
This is a more complicated activity better for the older students.  We did not complete this activity personally due to time constraints, but we were able to see how it was made and view the hand up close to see how it works.

Making this hand involves cardboard, straws, string, and tape.

These hands and fingers are based on a robot, or robonaut (robot astronaut) named R2 (yes, this is real) who is working at the International Space Center now.
I did not know about R2 until I began researching for my PSTI week, and I found it so interesting. I feel like some of this information has been hidden from me, even though I know I just didn't show an interest in it before!

This is R2:



To find out more information about R2, click here.