February 13, 2014 - Day Eight

For the benefit of a few of our friends who missed last Thursday because of the talent show, today we reviewed how to program the robot to draw equilateral polygons. The hardest part is determining the number that goes after the "turn right" or "turn left" command. That number represents the angle at which the robot should turn. To find this, divide 360 by the number of sides of the shape you wish to draw. To determine the interior angle of the shape (not needed for the program), subtract the angle the robot should turn from 180.

Students were asked to program their robot to draw any two shapes from the chart (5 sides or greater). Once complete, they either continued experimenting with their robot or worked on their Programming 101 lessons in Tynker. Next week, students will learn how to program and integrate "procedures," and how to use special commands that control sounds and lights.