The coaches & their kids attended the first day of a two day training session at UNCA's Osher Life Long Learning Institute on Saturday. Boy, was it a full day!
What we learned:
A fun an interesting way to figure out the diameter of your wheels: Move forward a number of rotations and measure. Figure out what you think it is, then test it against different numbers of rotations. When you're getting a consistent measurement per rotation, that equals your wheel diameter. Simple, enough, right? In the end, more accurate than wrapping a tape measure around the tire, and a user-friendly way for a 4th grader to approach the geometry.
We learned that for turns, a combination of Motor blocks and an external rotation counter configured for one of the turning motors is more accurate and consistent than a move block. Why? Well, the motors are each controlled by their own blocks and the rotation counter is more precise than the motor block rotation -- which applies to and keeps up with the combined function of two motors at the same time. You can learn more about the Move and Motor blocks here or here (note that this last one talks about the motor block on its own, without the external rotation counter).
The basic idea is that you create two motor blocks that run infinitely, and configure each to do what that specific motor needs to do (different for each type of turn). Then you use a reset and the external rotation counter (a sensor block for ONE of the motors) to tell the motor when to stop. So, one specific sensor is controlling the stopping point, which is more precise than allowing either the move or motor block to say "when" (eliminating the overshooting or undershooting of rotations explained in the links above). BUT, it only works if the two move blocks are infinite. Why? Because otherwise, they try to run sequentially and it messes the whole thing up.
The second session of the class is next week. We'll be tackling sensors then, so stay tuned!
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