Introduction to Robotics/Robotics and BoeBots/Lab/Teachers

A laboratory setting, especially one with electrical equipment, can be dangerous. The instructor should not be afraid to be stern when talking about safety, and students who act unsafely should be removed from lab.

Pre-Lab Preparation
There should be an available BoeBot for each team of students, and a working computer loaded with the BasicStamp programming environment. Ensure that each BoeBot comes with a power cable, a serial cable, and possibly a full set of batteries.

Laboratory Rules
Discuss some of the important rules with your students. You may wish to talk about all the following:
 * No eating or drinking in lab
 * Turn off cell phones and other electronic devices
 * Remove all pieces of metal jewellery, fashion accessories that dangle from the hands or wrists. Long hair should be tied back. Students should not be wearing extremely loose-fitting clothing, or anything that would distract from mobility.
 * Do not play with buttons, knobs, or switches that the instructor has not specifically told you to use.
 * Do not use equipment that you have not been taught to use.
 * If you smell smoke, see fire or sparks, or see anything else that is out of the ordinary, get your instructor immediately.

As an instructor, you may wish to edit these rules as necessary to suit your own laboratory environment.

Safety Contract
It is important that students understand the rules of the lab, and that they also understand the consequences. Many lab instructors may use a laboratory contract, that the students must sign, to dictate these rules.

Lab Assignment
The students are going to be using a series of straight-line and angle techniques to cause the Boe-Bots to travel in various geometrical paths. Here is a checklist of things that each group should do. You may wish to print out a copy of this checklist for every group, to keep things separate.

Finishing Early
Invariably, several students will finish these exercises early. Here are some examples of exercises that you can ask the students to do to stay occupied:
 * 1) Ask your students, using the techniques and recorded values from the lab, to make the robots spell out the letters of their name.
 * 2) Develop a method to turn the robot in rounded edges (not straight edges). Use this technique to move the robot in a perfect circle and in a rounded figure-8.
 * 3) Increase the speeds of the PULSOUT functions from some of the previous examples to ± 100 instead of 50. This will move the robot at full speed. Ask the student to calculate the necessary constant values to move the robot in the same simple patterns (1 inch, 6 inches, 12 inches, 90° turns left and right) using the full-speed. Is it easier to make a precise maneuver at a slow speed or a fast speed? why?