Welcome back to the STEM blog.

Our second block of work has begun and today we evaluated what we have done and what we want to do in the future.

Firstly, I spoke to the Engineering group. Francois said they had progressed well and learned to use Rovipro, before programming it to perform simple tasks, e.g. going forwards, backwards and turning. At the start there were a few system errors when programming from Rovipro. However, the group managed to overcome these errors and went on to complete the simple tasks mentioned earlier.

The group then looked at advanced tasks, such as using sensors to sense obstructions and turn away from them. This was a bit more difficult. Sometimes the coding order would be wrong or it would go in endless circles. The sensors failed and it wouldn’t “see” the wall that it was to avoid. They also cut up bits of paper to represent blocks of code to help them visualise the process.

The goals for the engineering team for the future is to learn a new type of programming, C, make general repairs and improve the design and to collaborate with the Energy group to power it. Also, because its function is to obtain rock samples, they should attach a mechanism or pipe to suck up rocks.

To help with this, the Energy group will test the solar panels and Robbie and Jordan will perform an experiment to see how long the solar batteries will last. This group, over the first STEM block, have looked at various energy sources and decided which one will be the best on Mars.

Next week, all the groups will be looking at the actual Mars Rover. The Energy group will look at its powering and the Engineering group the overall design of the vehicle. Check back to see how we get on!