Simulate Before You Desecrate

Students always want to see the results of their work immediately, and they move on to the next challenge as soon as they solve the problem once. My question to them is always “well can you do that again?” In a robotics class, or specifically a robotics competition, getting a robot that is capable of repeating the same action over and over with essentially the same result is an almost unheard of concept to high school students. They treat programs and robots like their homework, one and done. The goal of this plan is to involve students in the iterative process and to demonstrate that things do not happen exactly the same way each time. In particular it will show how simulation and virtual planning of robot motion can help ensure reliable functionality and prevent critical failures. In my fellowship placement lab, simulation is essential to the efficiency of the projects and accountability of the researchers to prevent damage to the robots, and I hope to bring that step in the problem solving process back to my students.