NXT Ball Shooter
A LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 robot.Copyright Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NXT_mindstorm.jpg
This activity helps students understand how a motor in a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® robot uses electricity produced by the battery to move a robot to do useful work in the form of throwing a ball. Students relate the concepts of electricity and battery to the movement of the LEGO NXT motor and connected links.
**Note: This activity uses the retired LEGO NXT robot which is no longer available for purchase.
Engineers design a wide range of electrical circuits for various electronic devices that we use everyday. Through this activity, students see how an electrical circuit is important for the flow of electricity, which ultimately powers electric devices. In the activity, students design a program to perform a particular task, which helps to cultivate in them a basic understanding of how robots can be operated via programming instructions that drive the motors.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Explain that energy from the battery is converted from chemical energy into electrical energy, electricity, which is used to run the motors of the LEGO NXT robot, which convert electrical energy into mechanical energy, thus making the robot move.
- Program an NXT robot to move its motor so that it shoots the balls from the ring attached to the motor.