Today, I did not have access to the robotics equipment (it was locked away somewhere) so the students and I spent some time doing book work. We talked about the basics of the "Engineering Design" process (ie taking a problem and devising solutions on paper
before building).
To simulate this I pretended to be a client hiring the group to build a robot. As the client I asked them to create a rough drawing of their robot, explain its functions and give me an estimated cost. After they completed this exercise, they worked individually answering questions about a hypothetical "room cleaing" robot.
I have some experience with the engineering design process, and I would love to come and talk to them about requirements gathering and documenting the steps to fulfilling those requirements.
ReplyDeleteWriting a mission statement, and highly specific requirements makes producing the actual product relatively easy. For example:
Mission: It is the mission of the Room Cleaning Robot to vacuum the floors of a room of any dimensions.
Requirements
The robot must move autonomously.
The robot must be able to turn 360 degrees in either direction.
The robot must be equipped with a carpet brush.
The robot must collect debris raised by the carpet brush
The robot's collection bin must be detachable.
and so on.
Once that is done, the steps to build the robot will be obvious and natural.