Now here are a few of our personal sentiments regarding this Wintersession's Robotic Design Studio...
"Get ready for a wild ride on the Senate Bus" read our sign for
the exhibition. Surrounded by a multitude of eager children ranging
from two years and up, my partners Francesca Cicero, Rebecca Bargoot
and myself finally fully appreciated the long hours spent in the
Science Center. With only two weeks to construct our Senate Bus and
to develop the programming that would animate it, Francesca, Rebecca
and I plunged ourselves into this project with determination and
tenacity. The idea of the Senate Bus originated from our own personal
experiences. Although we are very grateful for the availability of
this transportation, all three of us had our own secret horror
stories about the rides and drivers. After sharing our tales,we
decided to build a Senate Bus that would represent some of the most
horrific aspects of the actual bus. For example, the kicking-off of
people from the bus and the two types of drivers, a.k.a."Sober
driver" and "Drunk driver," are realistic and meant to be perceived
with humor. Although this project was quite strenuous, Francesca,
Rebecca, and I leaned how to program a Handy Board and how to
construct a mobile structure using LEGOs and imagination. We also
learned several non-academic lessons, most importantly, that patience
is a virtue. We acquired skills in cooperation and practiced thinking
logically. When we encountered some problems with the first model of
our Senate Bus, mainly that it was unable to turn, we did not
hesitate to start over from scratch. Thus, two days before the actual
exhibition, we built a new, lighter,faster version of the bus that
could turn. Within our group, we encouraged each other in developing
our talents and the area in which we were individually stronger or
more capable in. Consequently, Rebecca concentrated on the
programming of the Handy Board and on the decorations of the bus
stops and track. Francesca aided on the programming and utilized her
imagination and creativity to develop a system composed of two
conveyor belts and the kicker that allowedthe LEGO people to be
physically kicked off of the bus. I worked on the gear train and the
bracing of the entire bus structure. I believe that the Senate Bus
demonstrates the product of phenomenal cooperation!
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I really loved my experience with the Robotic Design Studio. It is
true that my group and I faced some utterly frustrating moments,
namely when we realized,two days before the exhibition, that we would
literally have to dissemble the bus that we had created over the
period of two short weeks and start from scratch in order to create a
faster-moving model that could turn better. Despite the obstacles
that my group and I encountered along the way, we never shared a dull
moment together ; though we were always building (or destroying, for
that matter!) something, we had a great time during those long hours
in the Robotics Lab, chatting, singing with the repetitive playlist
of MIX 98.5 FM and crying together when the bus just would not
turn! The project demanded that we combine the technical aspects of
physics, architecture, and computer science with creativity and
aesthetic knowledge. Each of the three group members - Francesca
Cicero, Melody Saint-Saens, and myself - had different experiences
and interests that we contributed to the devising of our Senate Bus.
Francesca was excellent at devising the mechanical aspects of the
bus- she devised and implemented the idea of a dual conveyor belt
system that would propel passengers to the front of the bus, where
they would be kicked out by a kicking-apparatus situated on the front
wall of the bus. Melody is also extremely adept at mechanics herself,
having put together several very functional versions of the gear
train and doing an beautiful job bracing the components of the bus
when it was time to assemble all of the pieces (the platform/floor of
the bus, the gear train and the bus frame) together. I had a lot of
fun programming the bus (with Francesca's aid!), as well as designing
and creating the actual form of the Senate Bus, the buildings, the
signs, and the other structures that comprised the Senate bus and its
track/route (I love projects that demand creativity!). The two weeks
of practically having taken up residence in the Science became worth
it on the final exhibition day, when our bus, a
frighteningly-realistic facsimile of the actual Senate Bus, strutted
proudly around the track that we had built for it, powerfully spewing
passengers (innocent LEGO Wellesley Women!) at each respective stop!
I adore my group - I feel that we all worked very well together and
that we created a vehicle to be very proud of. I also feel it
necessary to thank Lyn and Robbie for being so accessible and just
plain wonderful. Thanks for a terrific course!!!
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"Robotics Design Studio? You?" That was the basic response I got each time I told someone my Wintersession plans. What was a social science major, a senior no less, doing spending my last Wintersession building a robot of all things? Well, you probably know as well as I do! Actually in the Fall I took a Computer Science course, and had a really positive experience with it. For someone with very little programming experience, I felt that I had learned a lot during the semester. Not wanting to let this new-found knowledge to go to waste, I decided to keep up with computer science during "break." I must admit taking the class I was not left with much of a vacation, but nonetheless I learned a lot (technical and otherwise) and had fun (once all the bugs were fixed!). It was amazing to see our creation come into physical reality--something that we had known nothing about just three weeks prior! It amazed me that I could learn so much in so little time, and that I would be able to see something that was just a thought in my head, actually veering its way around at the exhibition! The weeks we spent toiling away with this project, the hours that were used in designing and redesigning and throwing away of a week of work were all worth it once I got to see our little Senate Bus actually working! It made me incredibly proud to know that with imagination, wishful thinking, hard work and cooperation (thanks partners!) we could create this being from nothing. Each of us became respective experts in our given tasks. Melody and her gear train, Becca and her musical HandyBoard arrangements and amazing building models and my own trials and tribulations with the conveyor belt and gear train all made us appreciate both what each of us contributed to the group and how it all fit together. We could not have done it without the endless help from Lyn Turbak, Robbie Berg and Becky Lippmann, our instructors, who gave us endless suggestions for conveyor belts, programming, bumpers, lights, and dealt with our countless midnight emails from the lab. Yes, I built a robot. It wasn't the easiest thing I've done, but it's probably the project at Wellesley that has taught me the most about myself (and how to handle stressful situations when things may not exactly work as you had hoped!)