The Goal of Today's Activity Is to Learn About the Parts of a Robotic System and How They

Do the Robot!

The goal of today's activity is to learn about the parts of a robotic system and how they work together. The parts we'll study are:

Controller (the "head")
This part of the robot understands the task that needs to be performed and instructs the others how to do it. In a real robotic system, this is a program that runs on a computer either carried on the robot or connected to it by wires or radio.

Sensors (the "eyes")
This part of the robot system can find out something about the current state of the world. It can return low-level information (like pixels) but does not understand what the information means. Real robotic systems have many different kinds of sensors, including cameras, touch sensors, distance sensors (such as radar ranging) and odometers.

Manipulators (the "hands")
This part of the robot system can cause changes in the world, such as picking things up or moving the robot around. Robot hands range from very simple suction-cup designs to hands that look almost human. Other kinds of manipulators are legs and wheels.

Today, we will divide into teams of four to five people who will together as a "robot" build specific objects out of blocks (please do not write on the blocks!). Each team will consist of:

One "head": The head will be the only member of the team that knows what the robot is suppose to build. She/he will be blindfolded and out of reach of the blocks.

One (pair of) "eyes": The "eyes" will be the only member of the team that is not blindfolded. She/he will not be allowed to touch the blocks, and is not allowed to speak except for answering YES or NO to direct questions asked by the "head".

Two "hands": Each hand (designated left or right) will be allowed to manipulate the blocks (but only using his/her appropriate one hand). They will be blindfolded and will not be allowed to speak. They must obey all commands given by the "head".

The "head" will be shown an assembled object. Once an object is shown to the head, your team should try to build it as quickly as possible, according to the above job descriptions. After completing an object, switch roles and try to build another object.