Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My daughter loves robotics. When she saw the "Build a Light Tracking Robot" project, she was thrilled!

We were wondering what the PROBLEM would be for this project - is there anything measurable? We haven't been able to come up with anything!!!

CDPTEACH - Not every scientific or technical implementation, or explanation of a phenomena, can be simply expressed as a solution to a problem. If you read some of the information on the Science Buddies site you will find some assistance in defining a hypothesis, creating a problem statement or otherwise defining what your demonstration is accomplishing, supporting or proving. See the following site for some help. Look at the tab for examples. While there is a lot of accomplishment in building a light seeking robot, you will perhaps frame your problem with "Can....?, Will....?, Should....? etc. You will be defining the 'what the robot does' in terms of answering proposition questions in your hypothesis.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ctquestion

Rick Marz

Hi:

I would also like to add that this is more of an engineering project than a science project, but Science Buddies has information on that, too: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... uide.shtml

Best, Keith

We built the robot last night!!!! It is an AMAZING project! The look on my daughter's face when it worked on the first try was incredible!

I have been thinking and thinking about this. I was wondering if you could give me your opinion if this would work (she is supposed to have some sort of controlled study for the project - but was so excited about building the robot!)


Problem - Do different types of lights have an impact on the speed of a light tracking robot?

We thought about testing different types of lights - a flashlight, a regular lamp, a LCD light, a fluorescent light, and the flashlight on my iphone - to see if the robot reacts differently based on the type of light. We'll be able to use a stopwatch to time the robot - and make a graph of the results.
Thanks for your help!!!

Cynthia

Hi:

The photodiodes are most sensitive to various light frequencies, so you might try a very bright light with various color filters to see which color (frequency) of light has the most effect. When you test different sources of light, you are testing different intensities and different colors, so you introduce too many variables. Even with the same light and different filters you introduce different light intensities, so it's not perfect.

You could also try pointing the photodiodes at slightly different angles to look at the performance. For example, if we call pointing straight ahead (and at the same angle) zero degrees, you could try (+ / -) 10, 20, 30, 40 degrees and see how the robot performance varies. In other words, besides both pointing straight ahead, point them slightly towards each other and slightly away from each other in 10 degree increments.

Best, Keith

Hi..

What could be a good hypothesis for this project?

Hey sanujain0802,

Your hypothesis will depend on the variable you are changing. If you are using kgudgar's idea above about light intensity, you could say something about how increasing the light intensity would increase the robot speed. Here is some more general information about hypotheses: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... esis.shtml Don't hesitate to ask any more questions!

- Mahesh