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Design, Develop, and Iterate on your Project - Python

Answer the following questions in your engineering notebook as you design your project: 

  1. What do you want to program the robot to do? Explain with details.
  2. What steps will you follow to test the project? Explain with details.
  3. How can your robot be programmed to complete the task more efficiently? Explain how.

Teacher Toolbox icon Teacher Toolbox - Answers

  1. Generally, the plan should be to have the robot drive from room to room and drop off medicine using simple programming behaviors like driving forward, turning, and waiting.

  2. The plan for testing will likely involve using the field to run trials and debug the project.

  3. Possible answers could include: using the shortest route, or utilizing more sophisticated programming like loops or variables.

Follow the steps below as you create your project:

  1. Using a ruler, plan out the path you want to program your robot to take using drawings and pseudocode (Google / .docx / .pdf ). Evaluate your pseudocode before moving on to the second step.

  2. Use the pseudocode you created to develop your project.

  3. Test your project often and iterate on it using what you learned from your testing.

Teacher Tips icon Teacher Tips

  • Ask students to use a ruler to measure their proposed path. Then, have students evaluate their pseudocode before moving on to the second step.

    Example pseudocode written for the Automed Challenge that leads the robot from the start to the pharmacy. The page reads 'Pseudocode' at the top, then 'Config is Speed Build with a drivetrain'. At the bottom there are handwritten instructions as follows: When the program starts, drive forward then turn left, next drive forward then turn right, next drive forward, lastly wait in the pharmacy.

  • Instruct students to use pseudocode as comments in their project to help with organization, flow, and troubleshooting. Remind students to evaluate their pseudocode before beginning their projects. You can download a pseudocode rubric here (Google / .docx / .pdf ).

  • View the following VEXcode V5 Python example code for reference as you help students complete the challenge: 

    # Library imports
from vex import *

# Begin project code

# Drive forward, then turn left
drivetrain.drive_for(FORWARD, 650, MM)
drivetrain.turn_for(LEFT, 90, DEGREES)

# Drive forward, then turn right
drivetrain.drive_for(FORWARD, 900, MM)
drivetrain.turn_for(RIGHT, 90, DEGREES)

# Drive forward into the pharmacy and wait
drivetrain.drive_for(FORWARD, 300, MM)
wait(3, SECONDS)

Teacher Tips icon Teacher Tips

Before the students open a new project, they have to select a template. The template project contains the selected robot's motor configuration. If the template is not used, the robot will not run the project correctly.

If you're having trouble getting started, review the example projects.

Viewing example projects can help generate ideas.

VEXcode V5 Toolbar with the File menu open and Open Examples highlighted in a red box. Open Examples is the fourth menu item beneath New Blocks Project, New Text Project, and Open.

Complete the following steps:

  • Open the File menu.
  • Select Open Examples.

The V5 Blocks example project menu is open and the category of examples is set to 'All' to demonstrate the example projects available to help generate ideas.

 

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