 Learning Subroutines with the Boe-Bot® robot
This Project was submitted to Parallax by Jim Berryman-Shaferof Silver Stage High School, Silver Springs, NV
The robot art project originated when I was looking for projects that would give my students further experience with subroutines. I had explained that subroutines were very valuable when you were going to ask the robot to perform a repetitive act and didn’t want to write the same code over and over again. Each student was instructed to develop at least 3 subroutines that would be used a number of times in a program. The robots were to use the program that the students had written to draw a design on a large piece of paper.
The students wrote their programs and tried them out on the floor before they attached the magic markers to the robots. I had covered as much of the floor as possible with butcher paper to allow for plenty of practice space. We used dry erase markers so that any stray marks could be  easily removed from the floor. Students attached the markers with duct tape. A lot of experimentation went into the best place to locate the markers on the robot. The same program will sometimes draw a different design if the marker is placed in a different location on the robot.
Each student was given a large piece of paper, approximately 3 ft by 3 ft, to attempt their final design. The finished products were hung around the room with the program that was used by the robot. These pictures created a great deal of interest by other robotics students as well as the student body as a whole. When people asked about the designs I explained that robots drew them. This activity reinforced the use of subroutines, attracted other students to think about taking a robotics class, and was a lot of fun!
Here are some examples of the artwork the students created. Click on the images for a larger view.
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