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Yr 10 students complete Robot Challenge

Bedford Modern School Year 10 students were recently set a challenge in their ICT lessons by Suzanna Harris, Head of ICT. Their technological challenge was to design, build and programme a working robot using a software package called Lego Mindstorm.

The robot building took place over many weeks and, initially, pupils were split into pairs. The aim was to create a robot which could reverse, pick up, speak, sense objects and move over different terrain.

Pupils used a three-dimensional virtual package and built their prototypes on the computer before translating this into the real build. Great differences were found between what pupils thought would work and what actually did work!

It was easy to forget elements like the roughness of the carpet and lessons were designed to reinforce the fact that computers cannot always take into account the physical environment.

The Year 10 pupils produced four robots which have now been programmed to race around a scalextric track and, interestingly, have found some software to control them via their mobile phones. All the students involved in this project have achieved a great deal more than they initially thought possible.

"The robots were designed using the Lego Mindstorm PC program. This is a form of lego but where each piece is also virtually represented on the p.c. Once the robots had been designed, students began building their robot from the pieces of lego kit. They were then able to utilise their own mobile phone technology to control the robots. This has been a wonderful achievement and one that the students have thoroughly enjoyed". 

Suzanna Harris, Head of ICT