Alabama's STEM explorers is made possible by the generous support of the Holle Family Foundation, established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents, Evelyn and Fred Holle.

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All coming up right now on Alabama STEM Explorers Hi.

Welcome to Alabama STEM Explorers.

My name is Mitch and I'm here at the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind in Talladega, Alabama.

I, with my new friends, Brett and Mary Beth.

Hello.

I'm Brett Grayson.

I'm a STEM trainer with NTID Regional STEM Center.

And standing in front of our STEM bus.

And I'm very excited to show Mitch around.

Are you ready to get on the bus, Mitch?

Yes, I'm excited.

Hi.

We're in the STEM Mobile now with students Alex and Nathan from IDB.

So, Brett, what are you going to teach us today?

All right.

Today we're going to work on an app called And this is our app we have on the iPad.

And it is one of the many things that we teach it with our STEM bus activities while we're traveling around the country.

And this is one of our most popular activities, so I'm very excited to bring it to you guys.

Cool.

Let me show you.

Okay.

All right.

When you first come into you'll see a homepage.

You're going to go to the log, go to play, select build.

You have two options.

Play and build.

Play is good for if you want to play games that others have developed and created.

So you can play their games and kind of get ideas or just for fun, just to experiment with games that have already been built.

Okay.

Build is what we're going to work on.

So we're going to build and create our old our own game.

We're going to focus on our own characters, art, background, and actual game features itself.

So yeah, so this app is free if you have a license.

And with our license that we have for us today, we're going to have to enter a special class code.

So I'll show you how to log in right quick, right.

So here you see, you have email and password.

And just look below that.

Okay.

Class code c c a EU.

All right.

So you'll see that there are a list of students already in the system.

I believe we have over 100 accounts.

So the code that we just used, have 30 options.

So let's just pick one.

It's asking for a password.

So you should see that on your all the iPads here.

Now, this is very secure.

So I want to emphasize, you want to make it or it can't be hacked.

So one, two, three, four.

It's our password that is extremely secure.

Yeah, it is.

Right.

Yeah.

So that's what we use for this.

Just one, two, three, four.

Okay, you're going to go into build mode.

Go ahead and click Build Mode.

You have four category keys to select from have game, character, art and background.

Okay.

So a quick vote.

Which one are we going to select first?

What do you want to do, Nathan?

Characters.

Okay.

But you do characters.

Yeah.

Characters.

Okay, Alex.

All right.

Characters.

So let's go ahead.

Click.

Character.

All right.

You'll see three different categories.

You can create a new character.

Okay, so go ahead and create new.

So within the grid, you can color it in and create the shape of the character that you want.

And it can be really anything.

Open ended.

So pretty much whatever you imagine if you've played the game or you've seen the game.

Mario Brothers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's kind of how this is.

It's a pixel game.

Looks similar to the old school retro game designs.

Yeah, a little yellow face.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A little circle and change colors selecting here.

This is my character.

And obviously, this is a very simple, smiley face character.

But it can be more elaborate.

You can add more features such as over in tools.

You can shift the picture so that it shifts left or right or up or down.

You can animate your character right now.

It has one frame.

So if we want to have movement, we need to add additional frames.

So on the second frame will, when you create second frame, it will create some movement.

We'll look at that.

Okay.

So now I'm going to have the face move up and then down, like, okay, like it's jumping a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's got like a little bit of a jumping animation now.

So once you get your character to where you think you like it but you want to see go up to test and you select a playground and they get a you can test the movement, see if you like it or if you want to go back in and edit your character further.

So this is a cool thing where you can develop more details to your character.

You can adjust speed, power, size, how it jumps, how it attacks.

So not one is the same.

Right, right, right.

They're all they all vary greatly depending on what you want.

So I'm going to make my character faster.

I'm going to make it very powerful.

And for jump, I want it to fly.

Yes.

It's always good to fly.

Yes, it is.

Got to have a flying character.

All right.

Now let's test it and see if we're happy with that.

All right.

You want to give it a try?

Sure.

Let's.

All right.

Come over here.

This is fun.

The game is a lot of fun.

And if you want change your character, go ahead.

Feel free.

Right here at edit, you can modify it however you like.

Cool.

Especially when you design your own character.

It makes the game a lot more fun.

It definitely does add to it.

Yeah.

So I'm going to make a little green Square monster with two little tiny blue legs See?

Oh, I see what you got going on there.

It looks good.

Oh, I see your legs.

Yeah, I can switch characters.

Yeah, I like how you animated that to switch over in animation, it switches over to, like, a different character.

I like that.

Thank you.

I honestly don't even know what I did is beautiful.

So this has been really fun playing this game.

It's been really fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is one of the many activities that we offer and have a lot more to show you.

So let's go ahead and look at something else that.

Wow, that was really cool learning my own game.

What's next, Brett?

All right.

This is a big IQ robot, okay?

And it is built from scratch.

I mean, you start with components in a bag and you put it all together.

Wow.

So I'll show you some basic components real quick.

So this is your brain, and the brain is kind of holds all the information on a programing, all the commands, like a brain and a body.

Yeah, it is same concept.

The Central Control Unit.

All right.

These here, these group blocks here are the four motors.

And that's what gives power to the robot core movement.

Okay.

The black wire you see here coming out right there is a smart cable.

The smart cables connect the communication between the brain and the motor.

If you don't have your smart cables connected, you're not going anywhere.

So this robot is a snapshot robot.

Every year they actually have a competition and we run the competition ourselves.

And we're having our competition in February for all deaf and hard of hearing students around the nation to come here and come to Alabama for two days to partake in a robot competition.

Wow, that's cool.

It is really cool.

We have different robots and they are various designs depending on why the teams have come up with and they come together and compete with one another.

All right.

So those are the main components.

And now I want to bring your attention to the programing, which I think is the coolest part.

Yeah.

All right.

You see, we have our different colors.

Yeah, different colors of blocks.

Different categories.

A lot of categories.

Yeah, we have yeah, we have several categories.

And they're going to align with your purpose of what you're trying to build.

This is where you're going to move all the programing blocks over into the workspace.

Interesting.

Okay.

Let me show you how it goes.

So this is where you physically add a part and then you want to add it here on the program so it knows that has been added to the robot.

So any time you physically add a component, you're going to make sure So right now, we're very limited with what we can do.

We have wheels.

Yeah.

And if you look here, the motors are here and they're connected to the gears, these blue gears at the bottom, and the gears are going to move.

What are they going to move the wheels or like?

Yeah, yeah.

So we have to make sure that we tell the program that has all these components so that it knows what its options are and what it's working with, and add those in this add device.

All right.

So you have options.

A lot of options.

Yes.

Yes.

You can build a lot.

And each each one has a different purpose.

So you see you had a controller just this.

Yeah.

And we can modify the controller, we can customize the controller for what we want.

And you see those two, they're connecto the wheels.

And we talk more about that in just a moment.

Okay.

All right.

Those two are related to the motor.

So there's two different ways you can approach the motor.

The other components are different type of sensors.

And the sensors help us identify colors, distance, time and touch.

So suppose you have a specific activity or objective and you're trying to identify a certain color.

You can use these to give the robot the ability to complete their objectives.

Okay.

Okay.

So we're gonna go into that the drive train.

Okay.

So this is the motor, and it controls this side.

It controls the two wheels on this.

Okay?

This motor controls the two wheels on the opposite side.

And so sometimes will have four motors where you have individual setup where one motor controls one will.

Yeah.

So each wheel will have its own motor, but you're right, in this situation we have to drive train of two, so we want to select that.

So I'll let you kind of look at it and see if you can figure out where which ports would correspond to the motors.

Well, I would think that I think I'm assuming that it will be the left port for the left wheels and the left ports.

So each motor has two.

So we put two on there.

Or is that right?

Can you see where the smart cable connects this kind of for the smart cable?

So if you can see where we've got it connected, it connects to over here.

The brain of it definitely does.

Can you tell which port we plugged into?

Let's see.

So you can.

Where to?

Where?

Okay.

Yeah, let me follow it.

Yeah So is it this way?

So does it connect to the four for.

For the first port?

Is it the first one?

Let's say?

I think so.

What's the first one?

So on the program, you want to select number one going do the same thing.

Let's say same thing for this one for the other side, that one looks like it connects to number six.

I believe.

Yep, yep.

That's number six.

Okay.

So we're going to select six, right?

So this is its specific settings.

Okay.

For the robot.

Let's see, it says wheel size, right?

So it's asking for some specific dimensions.

So we'll size on the wheel.

It says 200 200 millimeters.

So yeah, 200 millimeters.

Yeah, it is 200 millimeters.

You're right.

So you would have different sizes with the wheels.

Okay, so why do you think the wheel size would have an impact on your build?

Just kind of guess.

I think like the bigger wheels, it could go over, like, more like Rocky surfaces or like more bumpy surfaces.

And probably you can go a little faster with that maybe.

Or maybe it's a smaller world that you can go faster with.

I don't know.

It's smaller.

Yeah.

The smaller you're on the right track, the smaller is faster.

Another thing to think about is the size.

The size is going to impact the program.

Okay, so small wheel is going to go faster.

You also got to have tighter turn radius where your bigger wheels have a larger turn radius.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So that's going to impact your programing, too.

So so you want to make sure you have the right size selected here.

All right.

About the same.

Could with another one to look at the actual tread the tires how wide they're okay does it and there's little secret about those.

Okay.

This is set for default and we're going to leave it.

But it's important to know that if you do have a wheel, if you change it out to a different wheel and you're looking at a wider wheel, also want to make sure that it corresponds on your program.

Okay.

Same thing for wheelbase.

And wheelbase is the measurement from the center of the will to the center of the front row.

So when do you think we would change that or what?

What would be the benefit of changing that?

Changing the width of the wheel and that kind of thing?

Well, if we changed the wheelbase.

So on this one right here.

Yeah.

That's a distance from the center of one wheel to the center of the other.

Will.

So let me show you what that would be.

Okay.

Why would you why would you ever need to change that number?

Or can you think of a scenario where you might need to change it?

Well, it makes I think it makes it kind of longer in a sense.

So.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If I decided to bring the front of it, you know, put more space between the two wheels and bring the front forward more, then it would increase the space on the wheelbase.

And so just like we're talking about with the width of the wheels being important, the size of the will also have to remember the wheelbase has an impact.

Yeah.

All right.

So for now, we're going to leave it as as it is on default.

And so now we can add some programing components to make it move.

Cool.

All right.

We're going to start with a basic motion.

Okay.

So I.

All right, let's zoom in so we can actually see this a little easier.

Yeah.

So it's a drive forward for 200 millimeters, right?

So this program is essentially saying it will communicate to the brain and it will drive for 200 millimeters.

Yeah, it's pretty simple.

Yeah.

Okay, so now we want to add a little bit more complexity.

Go right.

So turn right for 90 degrees.

So that's right.

So it would go forward and then turn right or I don't know, I did left.

Right.

Okay.

So now I'm going to hand it over to you.

Okay.

Let you be in charge of adding different things you like to do and go ahead and add it and see if you can make it drive in a square.

Okay, square.

So if I'm trying to make it drive first in a square and I'll make it turn right for 90 degrees.

Well, before I do that, I'll make it drive for 200 more millimeters and then I'll make it turn right for a second time.

And there's one, two.

It needs two more.

I like I like how you're thinking this through.

Yeah, exactly.

And let's see, that's now that.

Oh, oh, there it goes.

Now that's 270 degrees.

And let's see one more.

So I thihat's a square.

I think you think?

Yeah.

All right, let's check it.

So from start, we go forward 200, we turn right, we drive forward, we turn right for we turn right again.

We drive forward.

Yeah, I think you're right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that is the basic programing.

Cool.

This little guide the robot to do whatever you decide.

So in this case, a square.

Interesting.

Okay, so there's many different ways.

Of course, you can see there's many different things you can do with the programing.

Oh, yeah, you can.

We have two other motors here, like this one back here.

Yeah, we have another motor sitting up towards the front.

So is that four in total on this robot right here.

Yeah.

There four a competition you can have up to six.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

This one does have four.

All right, so this one controls arm and you can add programing in there to make the arm actually extend forward.

And that's cool.

Yeah.

And for the game that we have, it has to reach out to the arm, has to reach out and make contact with in a certain area to earn points.

And then you see these spinning mechanisms here.

Yeah.

What does that do.

Oh it combines with the front one, that's the intake motor.

So this year game, gosh I wish I had the disc with me to show you, but it involves a small little disk similar to a hockey disk.

And the objective is for the robot to collect it through the intake motor and add those small disk to the storage and then it's going to actually shoot them out and try to put them in a goal.

So that's cool.

Yeah.

Can we see it actually?

Run So first, let's go ahead.

I need to download the program on to the brain.

So let's make that connection.

All right.

Now we've got turned on.

Okay, so you see the green little section here.

It says Brain underneath that.

Yeah, yeah.

Green is the color we want to see.

So if it's a green, when you connect it, it means everything's good to go.

And from there, we can go to download, all right?

And we'll save as square.

Square.

Yes.

All right.

Now let's download.

Hey, there we go.

All right.

Looking good.

Okay.

Let's hope it works.

I'm not sure if we have a space here.

Let's let's put this back and try to give it as much space again.

How far is around 200 millimeters.

It's about this far.

Okay.

Here.

So hopefully it won't fall off the table.

I we have to really catch it.

I'll catch it here fast.

Well, I've got to go the wire.

But we made a square.

It's the prettiest Get the idea.

Yeah, we had more room.

You can build more onto it.

So that's an example of how the programing works.

That's really cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you notice it was backwards, which is very easy to to correct that within the programing.

But that's it.

That's your basic intro to programing Robot.

I can see how much you can do with it.

So in some cases, oh yeah, you can do many things.

They're not limited to our little example here.

Yeah.

If program well thank you to you as well as Alex and Nathan and I've learned so much today and I'll see you next week on another episode of Alabama STEM Explorers thanks for watching Alabama STEM explorers.

If you missed anything or you want to watch something again you can check out our website at Alabama stem explorers dot org maybe have a question we could answer here on the show and you might grab a cool T-shirt.

Feel free to send us a video question or an email on our Web site, Alabama STEM Explorers Dot Org.

Thanks again for watching.

We'll be back next week.

Alabama's STEM explorers is made possible by the generous support of the Holle Family Foundation, established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents, Evelyn and Fred Holle.

Champions of Servant Leadership.