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.)
Beginning in 1989 and ending 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:
The instructions for each of the four lab periods are shown below:
Day One:
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: