Discovery · Systems Project 6
Structure and Function
Decide what it has to do. Then build the shape that does it.
Student PIN:
Try It — Why Is a Spoon That Shape?
Put a spoon and a fork on the table in front of you.
| Question | Spoon | Fork |
|---|---|---|
| What is its job? | ||
| What shape lets it do that? | ||
| What is it bad at? |
Now move something
Put a small pile of poms on the table. Move the whole pile about a foot, three different ways.
| Push it with… | How many arrived? | What went wrong |
|---|---|---|
| The flat edge of a ruler | ||
| Your two hands, cupped | ||
| An open book, standing up |
The flat ruler let poms escape. Where did they go, and what would have stopped them?
Shape Decides What a Tool Can Do
Nobody chose the spoon’s curve at random. Somebody worked out what it had to do — hold liquid on the way to a mouth — and then built a shape that does exactly that.
Engineers do this in one direction: first, then structure.
Learn It — Blades Have Shapes for Reasons
An is the part of a robot that changes the world. A blade is an effector, and so is a claw, a spoon, and a bulldozer.
Real bulldozers come with different blades. Each shape does one job well.
Seen from above. The wings are the whole difference.
Which one do you need?
- A flat front works — until there is too much stuff, and then it spills round the sides.
- Sides help hold things in while you push.
- If you have to turn or back up, sides and a front both help.
- If the front can be lowered over an object, you can turn and reverse without losing it.
Three Questions Before You Design Anything
What is the challenge? Say exactly what has to move, and where to.
What are the limits? What is not allowed, and what will not fit.
What do we already know? You have seen blades before. Use that.
Requirements and Constraints are not the same
A is what your design must do. A is a limit it must stay inside.
| Kind of limit | Means | Example on your robot |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum | No bigger than this | The robot must fit inside the starting box |
| Minimum | No smaller than this | The blade must be wide enough to catch a pom |
| About right | Close enough to work | Roughly the height of a small cube |
⚠ The Starting Box Is a Hard Constraint
Your robot must start the starting box. If your blade is so wide that the robot no longer fits, you cannot start a match at all.
Measure the box before you build. A brilliant blade that gets you disqualified is not a brilliant blade.
A bulldozer only pushes
You cannot lift with it and you cannot grab with it. That is not a fault — it is the trade for being simple and strong.
Pushing also depends on where you push. High up, tall things tip over. Low down, they slide. Fast, they scatter. That is worth remembering before you test.
Do It — Design the Blade
1. Look at what you actually have to push
Coding Project 6 asks your robot to push four different kinds of thing off the black line. They do not behave the same.
Put each one on the table and push it with a flat piece of card. Watch what it does.
| Object | What it does when pushed | What that means for my blade |
|---|---|---|
| Large red cube on its | ||
| Small cubes | ||
| Poms | ||
| Traffic cones |
⚠ Two of Them Will Cause You Trouble
Poms roll away sideways. Cones tip over if you catch them too high. One blade has to handle both.
2. Define the problem
One sentence. What must the blade do, to what, and how will you know it worked?
3. Write requirements and constraints
| # | My blade must… | Requirement or constraint? |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||
| 2 | ||
| 3 | ||
| 4 |
4. Sketch three blades
One straight. One with big wings. One in between. Draw each from above.
Three sketches, seen from above, in your notebook
| Design | What it is good at | What it is bad at |
|---|---|---|
| A | ||
| B | ||
| C |
5. Choose one, and say why
I am building design ___ because:
6. Build it and test on cans first
Build your blade from LEGO, card, or whatever your class is using. Fit it to the robot.
Test on empty cans before you touch the game field. Cans are cheap, big, and easy to see.
| Try | Cans pushed | Any tip over? | What I changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |||
| 2 | |||
| 3 |
7. Push high, low, and fast
Three quick experiments with the same can.
| Try this | What happened to the can |
|---|---|
| Push near the top of the can | |
| Push near the bottom | |
| Push fast instead of slowly |
What height should your blade catch things at, and why?
8. Now test on the real thing
Take it to the game field and try all four object types.
| Object | Went the line? | What went wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Large red cube + pallet | ||
| Small cubes | ||
| Poms | ||
| Traffic cones |
A Cone Lying on Its Side Still Counts
Mission 14 asks for the cones to be the black line. It does not say they have to stay standing.
Check the mission wording yourself before you spend an afternoon designing around a rule that is not there.
9. Fix the worst failure
Pick the object that went worst. Change the blade. Test it again.
What failed, what did I change, and did it work?
10. Check it still fits, then lock it in
Put the robot in the starting box one last time, blade attached.
Hand This Over
Your class can now start Coding Project 6 — Bulldoze Run. That project scores sixteen points entirely by pushing, and none of it works without what you just built.
Score It — Checkpoint
Function first
For each tool, name the job, then the shape that does it.
| Tool | Its job | The shape that serves it |
|---|---|---|
| A rake | ||
| A funnel | ||
| A robot claw |
Requirement or constraint?
| Statement | Which one |
|---|---|
| The blade must push a pom without letting it escape sideways | |
| The robot must fit inside the starting box | |
| The blade must move a cone off the black line | |
| We only have the LEGO that came in the kit |
My blade
| Measurement | Value |
|---|---|
| Width | |
| Height off the floor | |
| Wing depth, if any | |
| Robot width with the blade on |
Can you do it again?
Think about it
A blade cannot lift and cannot grab. Why build one at all, instead of putting a claw on everything?
You had one blade and four different objects to push. Where did you have to compromise?
Next season the game changes and there are no cones. What would you keep from this blade, and what would you throw away?
Next
A blade pushes. It cannot pick anything up, and half the missions on the field need exactly that.
In Systems Project 7, you build the arm and claw — and that one unlocks everything from Coding Project 7 onwards.
When you are finished, press the button to turn in your work and save a copy.
KIPR · Botball Explorer · Discovery