For the next few weeks we are focusing on coding to make a shape that is going to be 3D printed. We have started off with the different ways to make a certain shape. I started off with a nonagon and I coded it to draw a nonagon. A nonagon has 9 sides. We are using an app called beetle blocks. Beetle blocks lets you look around the shape that you’ve made so it will look 3D.

Here is a photo and an explanation of the code.

This is the X axis. The X axis is flat going side to side not built up.

Something I found interesting was the green operator block. I thought you had to put in the code turns and forwards but you can just put in a rotate Z with a division operator block to make a nonagon.

The first block means to start drawing when the flag is clicked.

The second block means repeat the code below 5 times to make it a full shape the nonagon.

The third block means start drawing the lines.

The fourth line means move 5 steps forward to make each edge of the shape equal.

The last block means that 360 degrees equals a whole shape but 9 means a shape with 9 sides.

Then I made a flower like shape. Here is a photo and exlplanation of my code.

Then we went on with making the shape build up to Z position. Z position is the height of it. I have done it like this.

This goes up the Z axis. The Z axis goes up so if I am gong to print this (which I won’t) it will be built up.

It is very important when coding that you show the X Z or Y position because then it wont be built up if in z position

The second block means repeat the code below 111 times.

The third block means to start drawing the lines. There is other options like curves but I want it to be a line that isn’t curved.

The fourth block means to repeat the code below in the grey repeat area 12 times.

The fifth block means to make each edge three steps long.

The sixth block means to make the shape with 9 sides.

The seventh block means to stop drawing the lines.

The eighth block means to put the animal that draws the shape into Z position.

This is the operator block. It has a 360 because it means that it will be one whole shape. The 9 means to make a shape that has 9 sides which is a nonagon.

Now Mrs Watson has challenged us to make a cool pattern on turtle art. Turtle art is different o beetle blocks because it isn’t 3D but the coding is alike. I set the background colour to 100 which is black and then made the pattern. I put an arc block to make it curve around. I repeated it 50 times and it made this pattern.

Mrs Watson sent us a colour chart for turtle art. It tells you when you want to make a shape and what colour you want it to be.

As you can see if I wanted it to be green I would type in 29 so it will become green.

Then I made a squiggly pattern across my screen.  I set the background colour to 100 again and set the colour and then set the pen size to 10.

After I made that purple squiggly lines I made a rainbow type. The changes I made was I put in after the set colour an add sign and added 10 which makes it change the colour by 10 so that it can be a rainbow.

The last 3 images of coding all were the same project except I just kept adding and adding different bits of code.

Now I am going to make a line with a circle on the end and repeat it 10 times. Here is a photo.

I have set the pen size to 15 and I filled the screen in with a blue. Then I set the shape colour to a lighter blue. Then I coded it to go forward 100, then right 90, then I put an arc block on to make a circle. I put the numbers as -360 because I wanted it to be on top of the line, then I put the 100 as the radius to make the circle smaller. Then I put a right turn 45 so it can turn to repeat again and made 9 more.

I have really enjoyed these weeks of design. I liked finding different ways to make the squiggly pattern I made and putting different colours in.

By Fidel Seignior.

7For the next few weeks we are focusing on pulling an object apart and putting it back together as something different. I am excited to see the different parts, purposes and complexities from the Hex bug I am pulling apart and how I can use the parts to make something.

This is what I will be pulling apart. It is a Hex bug.

We focused on the school system for a lesson.  We did parts, people and interactions. It is how the school works and parts of the school.

Down below is my drawing of my Hex Bug. I did the parts of a Hex Bug and how it works.

Here is how I started pulling apart  the Bug.

I started with the bolt on the head. I unscrewed it but it wouldnt come out. I made it loose.

I took the top of the red power button off so that I could make my way around to take the green casing off the base.

I ended up taking the casing off the head and found these 3 circle batteries.

Something I found interesting was when I took off the red casing on the power button the Bug still worked. I thought it may have affected how it works.

Where is took the red casing off the power button it has a little gap that I can take the green casing off. I found a problem. I don’t want to snap the green casing because I want to show it as one whole piece. I will have to find a solution to it.

I pulled this button like thing off the top of the power button. I am glad that I pulled it off because it gives me room to pull the green casing off the base.

I found a way to take the green casing off the base. I pulled the bolt that was holding it together off with some plyers. That let the green casing become loose and come off.

After doing that it opened up all of the parts. I screwed all of the bolts off and then all of the bits down below came off.

The silver bits were protecting the white parts. The bolts were connecting most of the parts together. The grey and white parts on the end were connected to the base and the legs so that was part of what held the base and the base of the legs together.

Something hard while unscrewing the bolts was gettting the right size screwdriver. One of the bolts that I tried to unscrew was out of shape from when I tried to unscrew it for too long. I got some plyers and ripped the bolt off.

Sometimes when I was working some parts just randomly fell off which was helpful.

Down below is a photo of all the pieces from the bug.

The 2 top left green parts are from the head. The very first one was protecting the where the batteries were. The second piece was holding the batteries and also connected to the part that connected the base to the base of the legs. It was also holding a micro chip and the micro chip was connected to the mini motors by wires. The other green parts were holding the part that connected the legs and the base together. It also had bolts screwed into it. The silver parts were holding the white parts next to the silver parts on the picture down below. The white parts spin and are connected to the legs so that makes the legs move. The grey and green things are the legs. They were pretty hard to take off because they had the long bolts that you don’t have to screw off so I had to pick at it. The 3 circle things are batteries. The red thing is the casing from the power button. That was the first thing I started to take off when starting taking apart the bug. The 2 white parts and the grey part are the parts that connected the base and the legs together. The 2 black parts below the 3 batteries I don’t know exactly what they are. One of them is a button like thing. The rest of the silver/grey bolts were just holding most things together.

This is the rest of the bug that was too hard to take apart.

Now that I have pulled all of the Hex Bug apart I can start Up-Cycling. Up-Cycling is where I put my things back together as something different.. I have pulled all of it apart so now I can make something with all of parts that came off the bug.

I am going to make a lighthouse using some of Leon’s materials. Our idea is to make a light house that shines down on the beach while surfers (The bugs legs) are surfing the waves. We might come up with some other ideas as we go as the idea is a little basic.

Here is my plan for the project. It’s a scan.

This is how we have started the building. We have put the cardboard light house with makeydoos connecting it together. We have covered the base with yellow paper as the sand and blue tissue rapper as the water. Here is a photo.

We have ran out of time to finish our project. What I would have liked to achieve was finishing the light on the lighthouse and the surfers on the beach. Another thing would be finding other ways to us some of the extra parts that I had leftover. We hadn’t had the chance to do the code for the hummingbird as we did not have enough time.

Something I found challenging was all of the small bolts and plastic pieces from my Hex Bug. What I mean about that being challenging is putting those things into my project. A lot of the pieces I don’t think I could have used again.

I really enjoyed these couple of weeks doing tinkering and making a lighthouse shining on the beach because I found out lots of different parts that were in a Hex Bug.

I rate this project a 9/10.

My partner is Gus G. We have started off by following tutorials while we code and see how we can improve.

This is a photo of us following the tutorial on how to code your Sphero to go in a square and our code. It shows the video under the code.

CODE IMAGE

Then we made a game called hot potato. How it works: You throw the sphero to someone and it will change colours at any moment without you knowing and if it lands as the different colour (Pink) in your hands you lose. This is the code of the hot potato game and us playing the game.

This is a spinning top game. You spin the sphero and it changes colours. Here is the code and a video.

Then we made a game where you had to throw the ball to each other and it made an animal sound and you had to guess the sound. Here is the video and code.

Now we are onto Java script. Here is our progression of the coding. We are trying to make a square .it is the exact same movement as the other square that we did but in Java script. We have found a problem. When we pressed start it wasn’t going. We went over the code and found a couple things that were wrong. There is a video of it working.

Now we are onto the Java script toss game. Here is the code and a video of us playing it.

We have finished all of the tutorials now.

If I used spheros again I would make a course for it to follow. I would make the code and see how it goes.
Some challenges I faced was when on the java script it would come up with a red line saying something is wrong. I didn’t know what it meant but Then when I found a mistake and fixed it, then the red line wouldn’t show up.
If I could fix something in my project it would be working a bit faster so I could have made the course I would have liked to do.
Something I found interesting was that you can type the code In letters (java script). I Thought I had to do it only with the blocks before I started using spheros.

I rate spheros an 8/10.

This is a link to my design book scan.

My goal is to make a mini golf coarse with Jay and Harry N. What I am hoping to build using humming bird, Lego and Lego motors is a mini golf with the theme carnival games.

1st part.

This is tape coloured with black marker. It is the part that you start to hit the ball.

2nd part.

Then the ball will get shot up the pipe/clown tongue and come out the back of the clown face.

3rd part.

The right part of the course. the ball will travel through the tunnel and will come out the other side going towards the hole.

The left part of the course. There is a tunnel on that side too. On the side where the ball comes out there is a gate that opens and closes. You have to hit the ball through the gate when the gate opens. There is also this standing up gate after the gate that opens and closes that holds the brick that controls the gate. The only reason that we have the gate that doesn’t open and close is to hold the brick of the open and close gate.

As you can see that we have put rocks at the end near the hole to make it more difficult to hit into the hole.

We thought that at the front of our course it was a bit too plain so we put photos of carnival games on to add some detail

This is a video of our windmill working.

As you can see there are little flaps for the gates to sit in place so it doesn’t fall over.

At the end of the course we put more barriers on.

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We decided to put an extra part of the part that stops the ball going over towards the hole because if we didn’t it would go all the way to the hole and possibly be a hole in one. The reason I don’t want anyone to hit a hole in one is because it is about having fun the course its not about getting it in a certain amount of goes.

We made this for decoration. There was a lot of space left for something so we put it in the extra space.

As you can see, we put stilts under the sides and under the hole so it would be a bit harder to hit in the hole.

If I could improve my project I would use a bit more space because I noticed it is quite bunched up and would be harder to hit while doing the course. Another thing would be the glue. We stuck glue on the pipes and stuck it down on the astro turf, then we wanted to take the pipes off the course and then there was a lot of glue stuck on the course.

Something important about our project was that we actually had all the supplies to build it. Also that we came up with a good idea/theme to make our course better.

This is the code for our windmill.

My initial goal is to make a Crite in the light and what happens is we will have Crite in a box and whenever he senses something near him he will light up. How he is going to sense something we will make a hole in the box and then stick your hand through it and then he will sense something so he will light up.

Here are the parts, purposes and complexities of my design: We are going to try and make Crite light up but the hard part might be the programming.

This is the first iteration of my creature’s system: We will make the lights light up and make the distance sensor.

The second iteration of my creature’s system we are going to put the hummingbird circuit into a box and then we are going to put another bigger box around the box with the circuit in it. The reason we do that is because the effect of the light escaping the small holes will look much better. We found that we didn’t have enough lights so we put some more in to make an even better effect.

Here is the code below.

Here are the parts, purposes and complexities of the additions to my design: Now we are going to add the distance sensor so when you put your hand through that hand hole the lights will turn on.

This is the second iteration of my creature’s system: We poked bigger holes into the smaller box because we thought the holes were to small and the light wasn’t escaping very efficiently. Also we have made holes in the side of the box to put our hands through to so the distance sensor senses the hand going through the box so then the lights will turn on.

The parts which were the most challenging was doing the code.

I am not really an expert with coding.

We didn’t finish the project because we couldn’t get the distance sensor working. Throughout this project I learnt a lot. I hope to do hummingbird again some time this year.

This is our finished catapult. We have found a problem. The problem was a part at the front of the catapult was to far in front of the part that launches the ping pong ball so what we did to solve it is we moved the part that was stopping the ping pong ball to be launched we moved it up and away so then it worked.

What I want to make next is a robot that follows the line.

It was a bit hard when building because some parts of the tutorial didn’t make sense but then Olly and Hamish helped me.

If I could use this again I would make a game where you had to aim the catapult towards a target.

Something that was important about it was the problem that I wrote at the top of my blog. It almost snapped which was a problem because the catapult wouldn’t work without it.

Our catapult took a while to make and It had some problems but it worked in the end.

It got hard in the end because of the problem. When we fixed the problem the part that flings the ping pong ball started to bend and nearly snap but it is ok now.

This is the code that we used to make the catapult work.

The first brick was making the catapult launch off. It has the degrees on how far to spin.

The second brick was used for when the button sensed it being touch it would let the stick that launched the ping pong ball be fired.

The third brick was telling the brick when to release the catapult stick and how hard it had to go.

The fourth brick was sensing when the go button was pressed.

This is our progress as we are making our catapult. The parts on the right side of the catapult with the cog, there is a stick attached to it and there is one on both sides. I noticed that they had to be the same size otherwise it wouldn’t work. but I found that out after I built that part. So now I am going to make them the same size so it will work.

There was a part at the front that I found hard to attach was the part under the part that you attach the ports to, I had to put a little stick on a T shaped piece of lego. I was copying it of a tutorial and my one didn’t look the same as the tutorials did.

This is a robot that we used 2 ball bearings as wheels so it was like a hoverboard. We found out that the cogs on the front we were using as wheels, the weight of them was too light so we connected the ball bearings on top of them to make them equal weight. As you can see the metal balls in the bearings would be followed by the cogs we used as wheels so they would both be like wheels. By holding the brick you can steer the robot.

This is how we have started our robot to move.