Tag: challenge

New cycles of Dr. E’s MINDSTORMS and WeDo Challenges

The two Dr. E’s Challenge sites, MINDSTORMS and WeDo, have launched new cycles of challenges. Check out the WeDo and MINDSTORMS versions of the February challenge, Mythical Beast. The two sites were created by Professor Ethan Danahy (Dr. E) of Tufts University to provide open-ended robotics challenges for students around the world. Each month, students design solutions […]

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Crossing the Gap

Crossing the Gap is a free-form robotics activity that requires a minimal amount of setup. It is an excellent choice for novices, but can also present a challenge to experienced students. The idea for this activity came from an earlier post. One of our after-school robotics classes recently completed this unit – check out the […]

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Boom-gate intersection (EV3 Hackathon 2015)

On 27 February 2015, a small group of EDGErs went to LEGOLAND for an EV3 Hackathon. This post documents one of the projects that came out of the event. For the EV3 Hackathon, Magee and I built a low-tech intersection–one that controls traffic flow using boom gates rather than bluetooth signals. Since the cars were […]

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JumboBooks: An introduction to using microprocessors in LabVIEW

The Center for Engineering Education and Outreach at Tufts University has created JumboBooks, a set of educational tutorials to program different devices in LabVIEW. The microprocessors used include the Arduino Uno, BeagleBone, LilyPad, myRIO, and ProtoSnap, as well as a tutorial for LEGO’s EV3 brick. The tutorials were created for high schoolers and up, and can be downloaded […]

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Zombie attack

In this activity, a group of students each build a robot. Each robot is assigned a number. It will then have to tag other robots with the number by using mail. Five tags and the robot takes on that robot’s number. The winner is the robot that has given its number to the most other […]

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NXT science / engineering fair experiments

The NXT brick is a great tool for more than just robotics. It can handle data logging for a variety of sensors over long periods of time and can run programs that will simulate large-scale experiments. The following are some cool ideas for science/engineering fair projects using the NXT Education kit (9797) and LabVIEW Education […]

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Motor vs Move – Part II: Action

In Part I of Motor vs. Move, we looked at how the Move block incorporates a control algorithm to help robots move more accurately. What else is different between the Motor and Move block in NXT-G? Motor The Motor block has an “Action” panel which includes a drop-down menu pertaining to how the robot’s motor […]

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WeDo activities: The next level

The LEGO Education WeDo kit provides a fascinating opportunity in simple robotics and programming for young students. The kit has 12 activities that introduce valuable science and engineering concepts like pulley setups and gear trains and ratios, and makes them approachable and interactive with sensors, motors, and software. Like with all LEGO kits, the possibilities […]

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Real world engineering: Using the NXT for earthquake simulation

Earthquakes are not all alike, and are identified by their strength on the Richter Scale of magnitude. The seismic waveforms generated during a quake depend on many factors including including fault geometry and rock type, wave travel path, soil composition, nearby mountains and other geological structures, and location of the origin of the quake. The […]

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