The Physics of Robotics

Recently I have realized that Robotics and Physics are strongly intertwined. I am on the Iolani School Robotics team, and in order to construct robots that can successfully complete the task required by the comepetition game, physics must be taken into account. In this year's game their is a square field that is divided in half by an eleven inch wall that has a four inch gap between the bottom of it and the floor of the playing field. On the field their are 31/2 inch high sphirical balls, 5 inch high footballs, and about 10 inch high round balls. You win this game by having the least number of balls on your side as possible at the end of the match. This means that our robot has to get as many balls off of our side and onto our opponent's side as possible during the two minute match.

We are currently building three robots to enter in next month's competition. The robot that I am working on is basically a mobile wall of conveyor belts designed to capture balls against the wall and push them up with the force of the rotation of the belts. We also have to panels that slide in and out, with rubber bands, on the front of our robot, used for capturing the balls in front of the conveyor.

Currently in physics we are studying force and motion. These concepts greatly affected our robots this week as we realized that the amount of force transfered to the ball from the conveyor was very important in achieving an end result of the ball traveling up and over the wall.

Our robot can easily roll the 31/2 inch balls under the gap in the wall and onto the other side, but when it comes to the footballs that are slightly larger than the gap, things get a little more tricky. If the force of the robot pushing against the wall is to great, the football will be wedged under the gap instead of going up and over the wall. The solution to this problem came from what we learned about force in physics this week. All we have to do in order to make sure the ball goes over the wall instead of getting wedged under it is to make sure that the rotating upward force of the conveyor belts is greater than the force of the robot pushing against the wall. Also, at the same time this forward force of the robot cannot be so strong as it pushes the ball under the wall.

The picture above is a picture of our unfinished robot. The wall of conveyor belts will go on the front (left in the picture) and the sliding panels will go on the sides where the sliders are located.

Emily's Physics blog

Wow! I can't believe we have already made it through four weeks of physics class! This class is definitely one of the hardest classes I have ever taken, but it is also exciting and different from chemistry and biology! I am excited to learn about physics because it is all about the way that the world works, friction, motion, gravity, etc.

So far, my favorite part of physics is the lab work. I enjoy the labs because they help me to visualize and understand concepts that I read about in the homework and they put the equations into practical use.

The homework and problem sets are pretty difficult and it takes a lot of hard work to get through them, but once I finally finish, I know that I have learned something new, and that is exciting!

Physics is really difficult, but so far it has been ok in terms of grades. I now that it is going to get harder and I am really worried about what is going to happen in the future, especially with the tests. I am worried about when the tests become a single period and also about the AP exam. But that I guess I will have to worry about when it comes. For now I think the hardest part is the homework, which is always a struggle to finish, and I'm glad I have the opportunity to ask other people for help on the problems I don't understand.

Ah, well, physics is going to be challenging, but I think it will be fun! My picture shows that physics is like a tight rope, I am nervous about it but so far it is ok.