Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

On the last meeting of my Introduction to Robotics class for the seventh week of the third term, there were more changes made to their robots for the maze traversal challenge.

One group was having trouble with their robot running into the dead ends built into the maze, so they asked that a certain color be attached to the walls in a certain part of the maze, at which point their robot will change programs.

I declined their request, but I did agree that black pieces of paper can be placed on the dead end walls, and at the T intersections leading up to the dead end walls for their robot – using the light sensor – could detect.

It is because of this allowance that I have decided to move their deadline back by one more meeting(for each class, giving it an extension total of two days), so those groups that want to take advantage of the new addition to the maze.

Not only that, but the change was also so that the competition can be announced in enough time for the all the groups to have a simultaneous public execution of their programs, maybe even inviting some of the school administrators and other students not taking up the subject (but could) to watch.

I’m also thinking of having the maze (built by DEIV exactly one year ago, and his group, although he supervised and had his picture taken with the maze by his mom and sister during the Open Campus) destroyed after the competition, and maybe replaced by another design with new dimensions, either wider or narrower than the current breadth, although of course the students are leaning toward narrower to give the next batch more of a challenge than they have experienced.

Another change I’m planning is to eliminate the dead ends, and maybe allow a looping path to exist that, although it may not follow the classic model of how computers can exit a maze, are actually easier for physical implementations of the concepts, where just going in a direction that is at a slightly tilted angle from the perpendicular to the wall, it would trap itself at an alley instead of being able to go out. Maybe I’ll also ask for the corners to be rounded out as some of the students suggested.

Session 1011 got trapped in a dead end and could not get out. Class dismissed.