Robot Lab

This website contains instructional materials and photos from our robot program in the class PH 192 Introductory Physics Lab. Most of the students participating in this class are life science majors. An overview of this project appears in the following article:
 
Lowe, M.*, Moore, H., Langrall, E., and Gehrman, C. "Robots in the Introductory Physics Laboratory," American Journal of Physics 76, 895-902(2008). (*Corresponding author.)
 
In 2007, four lab periods of class PH 192 were dedicated to building robots, followed by a larger competition on a separate day. Prior to these robot labs, the students were introduced to basic circuit principles and the components necessary for building a robot. Some of these circuit activities can be found in the following files:

• Ohm's law and IV curves
• Batteries in series
• Switches
• Voltage dividers, potentiometers, Wheatstone bridge, photocells

The instructions for each of the four lab periods are shown below:

Day One:

• Instructions
• Platform configuration
• Component placement
• Power switch

Day Two: Instructions
Day Three: Instructions
Day Four: Instructions
Competition: Track

Two types of boards have been used in this program: the Scorpion HX and a power amplifier board that we designed. The following files contain information on the power amplifier board and augment what is described in the article indicated above:

• Photo of the power amplifier board (circuit diagram appears in the paper)
• Full circuit diagram for radio remote control using the power amplifier board
• Instructional diagram of the power amplifier board
• Instructional diagram for radio remote control using the power amplifier board
• Instructional diagram for the line tracker using the power amplifier board