Search

A smart robot can detect its surroundings and make decisions based on its findings; a smart robot is a winning robot. One of the ways to make your robot smart is by giving it the ability to receive input from the game field. Using a light sensor on your MINDSTORMS robot is a great place to start when adding some intelligence. I have found that many new teams are intimidated by using sensors other than the rotation sensors built into the NXT servos, but this doesn’t need to be the case.

Part of operating a winning robot is being able to explain your robot to the technical judges. If your team cannot explain how and why the robot does what it does, you have missed the point of LEGO robotics. The actual robot performance is only a small part of a robotics competition; the most important component is what a team learns from the process. This is what the technical judges want to hear. They need to see and believe that the robot team actually did the work on the robot and learned something in the process.