Monday 9 March 2015

Take Pictures of the Far Side of the Moon

The first theme for a robotics project we selected was "Take Pictures of the Far Side of the Moon".

We talked briefly about why people from Earth always see only one side of the Moon. Also about the fact that for ages people could not do anything about it. It only became possible to see the other side when people started to build spacecraft in the recent history. This is probably the simplest video I've found:


The students built classroom robots using instructions (we picked Dr Damian Kee's RileyRover and Domabot http://www.damienkee.com/robots/).

Then the students had to design and build their own camera mounts without instructions.

Next, students had to create a program to drive the robot. First "flights" were conducted in testing mode where the "Earth" and the "Moon" were printed on  paper and attached to the floor. The programs had to be tested and adjusted to avoid losing the spacecraft.

Finally, the robots were sent on a real mission. The students had to work out the proper camera angle. The camera was glitchy at times, but that created a very realistic "video from space" effect:



1 comment:

  1. That was brilliant!! Fantastic to see their joy at their success! Awesome job with the video Roman :)

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