See-saw

not much going on here I must agree with you. To the naked eye, it might look like a button, a resistor, the led twins and the capacitor dancing over Dr.Takamisawa. Okay maybe not. basically, the button is to release some charge into the capacitor, which causes some sort of magical relay between all the components. The two LEDs would then flash back and forth, much like the blinkers on an automobile.    

I CAN SEE DUH LIGHT

you see that little weird looking thing there? that thing with the wiggling lines? that brown thing that's pretending to be a flower? yes that. that is a photoresistor. Sadly, it doesn't take photos, nor does it record 1080p videos at 60fps. WHAT DOES IT DO?! you might ask. well for one thing, I think it acts like a resistor. it is a light-controlled resistor. the amount of light it senses will determine the amount of resisting. This could be a direct relationship, or indirect. It all depends on how it is set up and what kind of photoresistor we are dealing with here.  

Static Shock

Boy oh boy I miss that cartoon show from Kids WB. Static Shock is able to produce over 9000 volts at 6 kilo amps, instantly vaporizing his victims into ashes. Okay maybe not that harsh. The transistor shown here, is rather sensitive! even with less than 100 millivolts, the transistor was able to detect the electricity,therefore allowing the emitter and collector to say hello. 

Knight Industries Three Thousand

Not exactly the KITT from Knight Rider, but this does the trick in regards to programming an Arduino board. The LEDs would flash from right to left, then left to right, much like the LEDs under KITT's hood. A great sense of accomplishment was awarded when the code goes according to plan <3

Let There Be Light

Here is the line sensor for our fire bot. It is basically an IR led and a receiver. The LED would shine onto a surface and the receiver would calculate the amount of light that bounced back. Sounds pretty simple and it certainly is. Even though the one I made didn't really work for some odd reason, Ashuai quickly made another one just in time to get checked off. This sensor is to be mounted onto the front of the robot, telling the robot that it has passed a line (E-tape). This can be quite useful when it comes to localization. Too bad mine was messed up, otherwise, having two line sensors would be pretty useful...I think.

Robot Maze

Today we are modifying our SquareBot to run a maze. The SquareBot is a simple machine that is outfitted with four wheels and two motors. Nothing fancy as of now, so we added a happy face to the front of the robot for the appearance purpose. Ashuai did a great job tinkering with the programming. The robot was able to make perfect 90 degree turns and reach the end of the maze with aplomb.

The official VEX maze. skillfully set up with premium electrical tape. 

I Got the Power

Mason also gave each of us some good 'ol cellphone chargers to modify. We stripped off the ends of the power supply and soldered two pins onto the positive and negative rails. Within just a short moments, everyone in class made their own little 5V power supply that's pushing out almost .75A and is also breadboard friendly! To me, this was a great solution to powering some electronics that requires little power. Before, I had to jump a full size PC power supply if I needed to power up some led strips.