Sensing Something New! 2025

Building off of the standard driving robots, campers expanded their robots capabilities by adding sensors to their robots. Monday was kicked off with campers building the bases of their robots and adding an arm and sensors. We also learned about how to use MyBlocks. MyBlocks allow the camper to make their own custom programming block out of a collection of other programming blocks. This is useful with repeating sections of programming blocks like working navigating an obstacles course.

On Tuesday, campers learned about the gyro sensor and how it can be used to turn to specific angles and to keep on a desired path even with obstacles in the way. Using yesterdays knowledge of MyBlocks, campers created MyBlocks for accurate turning and zero-point turning. After snack, campers worked on creating code that would allow the robot to stay on course even if it ran over obstacles.

On Wednesday, campers learned about the color sensor. Starting off easy, campers programmed their robots to stop on their favorite color. Even when the order of the colors was changed, the robot always stopped on the correct color. They then worked on sorting LEGO® bricks by color. Starting at home base, a LEGO® brick was placed in front of the color sensor and then the robot would move the LEGO® brick onto the same colored paper. After snack, campers worked on programming their robot to follow a line!

Thursday was all about the distance sensor and making sure we didn't run into walls. We started with programming the robots to stop 10 centimeters away from a wall before moving on to grabbing a block that was in front of a wall. The biggest challenge for today was grabbing four LEGO® bricks, one at a time, from in front of a wall. The only information the campers were given was how far each brick was from the wall.

Wrapping up Sensing Something New 2025, campers learned about touch sensors. Campers used the touch sensor to create a counter. Each time the touch sensor was press, the LED screen would increase the number displayed. We also gave the campers a final big challenge were they could use any sensor they wanted to complete the challenge. They had to press, pull, and grab to unlock rings which they had to sort based on color. This was a super hard challenge that we encourage the students to work through and see how far they could get.

Thank you to Little Debbie for sponsoring our event and providing snacks for our campers! Thank you to FTC Team 7209 Tech Hog Robotics and FTC Team 8373 Diva Force for volunteering to mentor our campers!