Students began the new year with the "Dancing Robots" Studio in the second unit of the Winter "Storytelling" trimester. Led by Sean Stevens, an Alternative Energy Artist and Scientist, and assisted by David Wang, our in-house Rocket Scientist, the studio focuses on designing, building and prototyping robots that can dance and emote based on stories and character descriptions the students develop. The studio integrates concepts surrounding energy and power, robotics, programming and mechanical construction using basic tools and free software, so that students will have the skills and knowledge to quickly design and build robots easily and anywhere!
The first day, students formed four teams and began the design process by brainstorming ideas about the types of actions and functionality desired for their robots. They then further iterated their designs with a focus on the expressiveness of the robot and its character as a guiding design element. Day two, Sean did a quick demo of how to quickly (and messily) prototype robots using basic construction tools, polycarbonate as a raw material, metal screws and servo motors. Students then began building their first prototypes out of cardboard and construction foam. Using servo motors connected to micro controllers that send and receive signals from an open-source, electronics prototyping platform called Arduino, students began testing how to make their robots move, dance and form expressive motions through basic programming. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language. Receiving input from a variety of sensors, Arduino then can be used to control lights, motors, and other actuators on the robots.