the government allowed the teachers to create a plan for their students to do their options at home.
Mr. Everitt, who returned during this time, arranged for us to use a micro controller system call Phidget. The Phidget can be used with many different software languages. We are using Python to do various exercises that are found on Phidget's website. I found many of the exercises to be quite easy as Phidget provides very good example code. It is easy to program as they have many functions that allow you to program the buttons and temperature sensor without having to program them yourself from scratch every time. On my own I have been expanding my programming capabiilties. With my mother I have been learning how to program HTML/CSS to create web pages from scratch. My father and I have been learning how to program individually programmable LEDs using an Arduino.
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April 2002 was COVID-19.
The Alberta government only had the core courses being offered. There was no plan for options to be run and we had no Mechatronics during April. In March we finally started a challenging project.
We had to use Py Game, which is a Python based game development platform, to create our own 2D game. We were just getting started to program in Py Game, when COVID-19 hit and school was stopped. No one was able to complete their project as many were doing it in groups and it was too challenging to communicate with your partners and continue programming. I personally was in quarantine for the last two weeks of March and could not leave the house. February was a boring month.
The substitute teacher did not provide us with challenging projects and I was bored with Mechatronics. Our schedule for the year was modified when Mr. Everitt left. Unfortunately the new substitute teacher modified the schedule, because he believed there was too much time allocated for certain projects. So we programmed some more on our own. One other project we had was to create our own PCB board. This was difficult for many people as many of the other students did not understand exactly what a PCB was. I created one that I would be able to use later at home. My circuit was for measuring the temperature and humidity and displaying it. I wanted to create this design so that my father could monitor the temperature and humidity in his woodworking shop. In January we continued with programming challenges using Python.
I would have prefered to have had more structure. Instead of doing solo programming challenges it would have been better to have done a group programming project. This would have allowed the more advanced programmers to code more difficult things and the learning programmers to receive guidance without have to find the information all by themselves. People learning how to program don't know how to search, necessarily, for the correct information. They also are not able to comprehend what the syntax errors that they are receiving. Collaboration would have helped everyone. Learning programmers get more help and guidance and experienced programmers can reinforce their knowledge by helping others. In November we lost our Mechatronic teacher, Mr. Everitt, due to medical leave. It took a while to get a substitute teacher due to the fact that Mr. Everitt was forced to leave several weeks earlier than planned.
This messed up our schedules and our English teacher gave us extra work to keep everyone busy. We did some podcasts in teams. Unfortunately we didn't really do much from a mechatronics perspective. October was a challenging month. During October we had to create our own rover that could complete an obstacle course that involved moving balls into buckets. I was partnered with two other people. We had to create a business presentation complete with a budget. To get funding we had to present to the teachers. The top three teams received extra financing and priority on the 3D printer and materials.
Unfortunately, our team did not get into one of the top three positions. Fortunately for our team, one of our team members had a 3D printer at home and we were able to get all of the parts that we needed for our project printed. This was beneficial because 3D printed parts were lighter and cheaper to purchase than their metal or wood counterparts. Our rover was comprised of the wheels and motors from an old RC car, a lot of 3D printed parts, zipties and hot glue. To control our rover we decided to use a Raspberry Pi, two H bridges and a voltage step-up converter. We required the voltage step-up converter to power the H bridges from the Raspberry Pi, the Raspberry Pi outputs 3.8V and the H bridge required 5V. We programming the Raspberry Pi to use a bluetooth gaming controller to control the rover. When doing testing prior to running the course for the rover the lithium battery was shorted by accident. We immediately realized that the smoke coming from the battery was not optimal and frantically ripped wires off of the rover to stop the short. As a result we weren't able to run the tests. Fortunately we were able to fix the rover and run the course the next day. September went by very quickly. We spent some time with the grade 10 students getting to know them better. It was really nice to be able to meet and and work with them. I wish that we had done that when I was in Mechatronics 10.
We started out with two flash challenges similiar to the ones we had the year prior. One of them was rapid fire, where we had to make a gun that would knock down a red solo cup tower using elastic bands. This was a combined project with two grade 10 and two grade 11 students working together. Our gun worked fairly well, but there is always room for improvement. We had trouble reloading the gun and we needed more time to work on our aim. The other flash challenge was red solo cup, where we had to manipulate a rubber band using strings to turn a solo cup over. The was another combined project with team having various numbers of people. Mr. Everit used the different sized teams to demonstrate to the grade 10 students that working in smaller groups can be more productive, as there is less complications with communication. Team sizes were changed as we were working. It made it challenging to work with more than four people. This flash challenge demonstrated that listening to others and giving each person time to present their idea with others listening is important. |
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May 2020
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