|
Botball
Overview
|
Botball
is presented by the KISS Institure for Pratical
Robotics. The Botball program combines science, cutting-edge
technology, engineering and math with the latest in robotics.
Botball is designed for students in middle and high school.
Before students begin working on a Botball team
their teacher goes through a workshop where they
are given the basic knowledge they will need to pass on to
the students. By the end of the workshop, the teachers know how
to
design and build a robot. They receive a Botball kit to take back
to
the team. The kit includes
sensors, motors, high-tech robot computers, LEGO pieces, software, and
documentation. Everything is provided that the team will need to
both build and program the robots. After the competition, the
classroom is allowed to keep the parts, so that practice and the
experience might be enjoyed year-round.
The students have approximately seven weeks to
build their robots. In this time, they must
also document their progress on a weblog, and successfully program the
robots to start, run, and stop on their own. They must also build
their own gameboard on which they perfect their programming.
The robots are programmed in the C
language. C language is very
popular in both science and business. Programmers that can "read"
this language are in high demand.
|
|