Discovery · Systems Project 1
Meet Your Kit
Everything you will build this year is in one box. Find out what is in it.
Student PIN:
Try It — Tip It All Out
Empty the kit onto the table. All of it, spread out so nothing is stacked on anything else.
Do not sort it yet. Just look.
| Question | My answer |
|---|---|
| Roughly how many separate pieces are there? | |
| Which part is the biggest? | |
| Which part looks the most important? | |
| Which part do you have no idea about? |
Now sort it — your way
Put the parts into piles. You decide the rule. There is no right answer yet.
| Pile name | What went in it, and why |
|---|---|
Compare your piles with another team’s. Did you sort the same way?
There Is More Than One Right Answer
You might have sorted by size, by colour, by what it is made of, or by what you think it does. Engineers usually sort by job — what a part is for.
Hold on to how you sorted. In a minute you will see how KIPR does it.
Learn It — Why Engineers Count Things
A looks like the most boring tool in engineering. It is also one of the most useful.
One Missing Screw
Imagine it is competition day. Your robot is built, your program works, and one bracket is missing a screw. You cannot buy one in the hallway. You cannot borrow one mid-match.
A checklist is how you find out on day one instead of on the day it matters.
Checklists do three jobs:
Account for everything — You know what you have, so you know what is missing while there is still time to replace it.
Give parts a name — “Pass me the thing” wastes time. “Pass me the angle bracket” does not.
Prove you are packed — At the end of a session, one person runs the list and the kit goes back complete.
The four families of parts
The Brain — The Wombat and its charger. This is the computer that runs everything.
The Body — Chassis, brackets, LEGO, screws and stand-offs. The parts that hold everything together.
The Muscles — Motors and . The parts that make things move.
The Senses — Touch , light sensor, rangefinder, tophat sensors. The parts that gather information.
Look back at your own piles. Which family did you miss completely, or split up?
⚠ Two Things That Look Alike and Are Not
You have motors and you have servos. Both make things turn. They are not interchangeable, and plugging one into the wrong will not work.
Learn to tell them apart now, on the table, rather than later with a robot half-built.
Do It — Account for Everything
1. Run the official checklist
Find each item and tick it off. Count carefully — the number in front matters as much as the name.
General Parts
- ×2 KIPR Wombat Controller
- ×2 KIPR Wombat Charger
- ×2 KIPR Wombat Battery
- ×1 Botball Screwdriver
- ×2 LEGO Bags
- ×2 LEGO Claw Bags
- ×4 Motors
- ×4 Servos
- ×4 Wheels
KIPR Metal Parts
- ×2 Bag of Screws & Stand-offs
- ×2 Metal Ball Caster
- ×2 Angle Brackets
- ×4 Servo Brackets
- ×2 Metal Straps (1x10)
- ×2 Chassis
- ×4 Metal Servo Horns
Sensors
- ×2 Light Sensors
- ×2 ET Rangefinders
- ×2 Small Tophat Sensors
- ×2 Large Tophat Sensors
- ×2 Lever Sensors
- ×2 Large Touch Sensors
2. Make your own checklist
Copy the list into your notebook in your own handwriting, grouped however makes sense to you.
Why Copy Something That Already Exists?
Because you will remember a list you wrote far better than one you were handed — and because at the end of the year your kit may not match the printed sheet exactly.
3. Motor or servo?
Pick up one motor and one servo. Compare them properly and fill in all three columns.
Only the motor
Both
Only the servo
Count the wires. Look at the plugs. Turn each one by hand and notice how far it goes.
4. Be the expert
Split the kit between your team so each person gets a few parts nobody else has.
Take five minutes with yours. Then go round the team — each person picks up their part, names it, and says how you can tell it apart from everything else in the box.
Keep going until every item in the kit has been claimed and explained.
| My parts | How I can tell each one apart |
|---|---|
5. Know your controller
Set the Wombat in front of you next to the Controller Guide. Find each of these on the actual board and say what it is for.
| Find this | What is it for? |
|---|---|
| Power switch | |
| Battery connector | |
| Motor ports | |
| Servo ports | |
| ports | |
| ports | |
| USB ports | |
| Touchscreen |
Digital and Analog Have Separate Ports
A touch sensor goes in a digital port because it answers yes or no. A light sensor goes in an analog port because it answers with a number.
Plug one into the wrong kind and it will not read properly. You will meet both properly in the Coding strand.
6. Give it a home
Loose parts get lost. Decide as a team where the kit lives and how it goes back.
| Question | Our answer |
|---|---|
| Where does the kit get stored? | |
| How are the small parts kept together? | |
| Who runs the checklist at the end of a session? | |
| What happens if something is missing? |
⚠ The Charger Is the One to Watch
You have two chargers, and without them the whole kit is a box of parts by the end of the week. Decide right now where they live, and put them back there every single time.
Score It — Checkpoint
Name that part
Without looking back at the checklist.
| The part that… | Is called |
|---|---|
| …is the computer running the whole robot | |
| …lets the robot roll without a third wheel | |
| …holds a motor onto the chassis | |
| …measures how far away something is | |
| …bolts onto a servo so it can push or lift |
Which family?
| Part | Brain, Body, Muscles, or Senses? |
|---|---|
| Chassis | |
| Long Lever Sensor | |
| Wombat Controller | |
| SG-5010 Motor | |
| Stand-offs |
Can you do it again?
Think about it
Everything your robot will ever do this year has to be made from what is on that table. Does that seem like a lot of parts, or not very many?
You sorted the parts your own way before you were shown a better one. Was your way wrong, or just different? What made the engineers’ way more useful?
A checklist takes five minutes and finds a problem that would take a whole competition day to fix. Where else in your life would a checklist be worth five minutes?
Next
You know what is in the box. In Systems Project 2 — What Makes a Robot a Robot?, you find out what turns a pile of parts into something people call a robot — and why that question is harder than it sounds.
If you are ready to switch strands, this is a good moment to start Coding Project 1 — Wake Up Your Wombat. You now know where the controller and the charger are.
When you are finished, press the button to turn in your work and save a copy.
KIPR · Botball Explorer · Discovery