Lesson 105: Robot Motion | The Robot Doctor
Support Materials
How a robot moves, using math to predict future positions – given the robot’s model and the equations of motion.
Assignment: Lesson 105
Imagine you have a robot that is 50cm wide, with a wheel radius of 10cm, starting at (0,0), with an orientation of π/4.
- If both wheels move at 1 radian/second for 10 seconds, what is the robots final position and orientation?
- If the right wheel moves at 1 radian/second and the left wheel at 1.5 radians/second, what is the orientation after 1 second?
About
Use math to determine how a robot moves, and its future positions – given the model of the robot and the equations of motion, in this 14-minute episode. The goal of this video series is to teach the basics of Robotics: the what, why, and how—with examples—and to provide take-home problems to solve.
Robots need to move, but how do they determine how far to turn the wheels to get where they want? In this lesson we explore the equations of motion for differential drive robots. We will walk through how to derive these equations as well as talk about some of the possible wheel configurations a robot could have.
Credits: WQED, RobotWits LLC, PA Rural Robotics, Dr. Jonathan Butzke, Carnegie Mellon University
Standards
- Generating solution steps/paths within constraints (STEELS.6-8.TE.4)
- Simple route planning with waypoints (STEELS.6-8.TE.5)
- Modeling trajectories as functions/vectors (STEELS.9-12.PS.2)
- Evaluating tradeoffs (time, energy) (STEELS.9-12.TE.4)
- Graphing points and lines (CC.2.3.8.A.1)
- Calculating shortest path distances (CC.2.3.8.A.3)
- Optimization using functions (CC.2.2.HS.C.8)
- Applying slope and intercept concepts (CC.2.2.HS.C.2)
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