I have more questions on racing voxel models with VoxCAD

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myungja
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Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 7:08 pm
Occupation: Student: 11th grade
Project Question: robot races using voxcad
Project Due Date: 12/2014
Project Status: I am conducting my research

Robot races using VoxCAD

Post by myungja »

Hi I am doing science project that is posted on science buddies, robot race! use a VoxCAD. The point of this project is to find faster robots. But I can't figure out what factors, or designs, make it faster..When I create a robots with more red and green blocks (muscles), they are going faster? I tried to find it, but I couldn't explain..Please help me..!
bfinio
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Re: Robot races using VoxCAD

Post by bfinio »

Hi myungja,

I apologize, I just realized that this project is missing a note about the Engineering Design Process, like the one at the top of this page:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure

Because robot designs can vary so wildly, there is no simple rule about what will make a robot faster. The point of this project is to experiment with different designs to find out for yourself (following the engineering design process), not to make a hypothesis about what will make the fastest robot based on the background information (following the scientific method).

I would suggest carefully watching the first 15 seconds of this YouTube video:

http://youtu.be/__h-6fstJMU

Notice how there are three drastically different robots: a 6-legged "bug" robot, a bouncing "cube" robot, and a floppy "snake" robot, that all move at different speeds. Try coming up with some designs of your own and testing them in the program. As you experiment with different designs, you should start to notice that some are faster than others, and then you can work on improving those designs even more.
myungja
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 7:08 pm
Occupation: Student: 11th grade
Project Question: robot races using voxcad
Project Due Date: 12/2014
Project Status: I am conducting my research

I have more questions on racing voxel models with VoxCAD

Post by myungja »

Hi I need more help of all you experts in my project...I am working on racing models made with voxels with program VoxCAD. I followed the procedure on https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure here. But my models don't go forward. They don't go backward or forward, they just do not move. They just stay in one position. How can I do this??? And I don't know how to bring 2 or more models in the same field. I need to bring more than 1 models to do race, but I don't know how to put models together....please help me!!!
norman40
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Re: I have more questions on racing voxel models with VoxCAD

Post by norman40 »

Hi myungja,

I have reviewed the project description but I have no experience with VoxCAD. Perhaps other contributors to the forum can offer some more specific suggestions.

It seems to me that the main task is to arrange blocks of the four materials to get moving robots. Two of the materials (red and green) expand and contract. When the red material expands, the green contracts.
The other two materials (light blue and dark blue) do not expand or contract. To make a robot that moves the red or green material needs to be next to one of the blue materials.

Have you reviewed the tutorial shown in the “background” section of the project?

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

It shows three different robot designs that move at different speeds. Maybe you could start by duplicating the designs shown in the tutorial to get a better idea of how to arrange the materials to make your own robots.

I hope this helps and good luck with your robots. Please ask again if you have more questions.

A. Norman
bfinio
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Re: I have more questions on racing voxel models with VoxCAD

Post by bfinio »

Hi myungja,

When you say your robots "do not move", do you mean that the red and green voxels do not expand and contract at all? Or do you mean that the voxels expand and contract, but your robots don't make any forward progress?

If the voxels are not expanding and contracting at all, that means you need to go into "Physics Sandbox" mode, as described in the "Using the Physics Sandbox" section of the procedure:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure

If your robots just aren't moving a lot, then as norman40 said - that is just part of the design challenge for the project. There are infinitely many robot designs you can come up with, and some of them just might not work. Try modeling a robot similar to one of the ones from the very beginning of the introduction video:

http://youtu.be/__h-6fstJMU

Finally, to get two robots next to each other, you need to actually design them in the same file. Make your workspace big enough to fit multiple robots, as described in the project. There is no way to "import" a robot from a separate file.

Good luck!

Ben
dcnick96
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Joined: Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:59 pm

Re: I have more questions on racing voxel models with VoxCAD

Post by dcnick96 »

Hello. We noticed you had two different threads going for the same topic. We merged the two into a single thread. Please keep all questions to one thread so that our experts can best help you based on what has already been discussed.

Good luck, and thanks for using Science Buddies!
Deana
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