Year 9 STEM students are pleased to introduce Jeremy

Year 9 STEM finished the year with a team robot-building project that involved designing, building and coding a robot using the skills we had learned throughout the year. We assembled the robots using Arduino boards and other electronic components, a laser-cut plywood body we designed using Adobe Illustrator software, and used the Arduino programming language to instruct the robot how to function. We had Arduino programming experience from controlling LEDs and electronic sensors, and laser cutting experience from earlier in the year when we design and built plywood marble runs, however we had not done something like this before and as such it presented a challenge. Through careful planning, trial and error, and a lot of glue, the three teams were able to create functional, moving robots, which drove using on-board motors, and were able to detect and avoid objects using an ultrasonic sensor.

“Time was a constraining element. We ended up using Aila’s code as she had made code that actually worked.” Maria P (9O)

“The coding part of the project was the best part, as we got to code whatever we wanted to make the robot move around.” Navpreet S (9B)

“Through this project Abigail and I learned basic coding skills but also how to problem solve. We learned that you typically have to check things in many different spots in your code to fix a small problem, and sometimes you end up changing things you didn’t even know were a problem.” Coco C (9H)

“It worked in the end, which is all I really wanted, to be honest [laughter].” Aila B (9O)

By Liam M (9O)