Summer SAVY Session 2, Day 2 – Robotic Engineering
Day 2: We started off our day with a fun game that required attention to detail and quick thinking. If there was an imaginary ball league, our team would be all stars! We quickly reviewed yesterday’s lessons and today’s “Question of the Day’ before jumping into some exciting activities.
We continued our group work discussion. Today we talked about the importance of organizing and delegating work to ensure everyone has a role. We talked about what makes a good team moderator and the common mistakes leaders make. Finally, we talked about what to do when a team member isn’t paying attention or pulling their weight, strategies to engage them, and when to seek help from an adult.
Today our companies sought to mass-produce custom artwork using a scanner/printer robot, but the program they received didn’t work as expected. That’s okay because our companies have talented in-house programmers available to solve the problems! Yesterday students learned about debugging programs and today they put that knowledge into action to improve the accuracy and performance of their scanner/printer. This was a very challenging assignment. Although we would have liked more time to see it to completion, each team was able to debug a portion of the code.
Next, our colleagues had professional development where they explored different types of gears, their uses, gear trains, and learned how to change the direction of motion using bevel gears. We also talked about mechanical gain, learned how to calculate gear ratios, and how to achieve more torque or speed.
This afternoon we learned about Computerized Numerical Control or CNC machines. Our companies went into the business of refurbishing broken machines for resale. Tomorrow morning teams will work towards identifying the four mechanical problems of a build and make improvements before setting to work to build a better grabber device. Then, they’ll design a prosthetic device for a client’s specific need.
Today’s question of the day:
“If ___ were an Olympic sport, I’d be a real contender for the gold medal!” What is your new Olympic sport?
Answers included making bracelets, making breakfast pizzas, drinking water, reading, playing Pokemon, having maniacal laughter, loading the dishwasher, doing Sudoku puzzles, and eating wings.
Ms. Penne