Just before our Christmas holiday saw the climax of the STEM project, which had been designed to test the programming of the Mars Rovers. There were three teams and they each had to programme the Rovers to complete an obstacle course in the shortest time possible. This was to simulate the Mars Rovers exploring Mars itself.
The contest took the form of a time trial, with each team having three attempts before and an average of those was taken. All of the team put their problem solving skills to the test as they each were allowed to tweak their programmes between each run. It was a highly skilled and competitive race, only 0.5 seconds the winners from the second place team.
All of the STEM club would like to say a huge thank you to our STEM ambassador Ken Maxsted for all of his valuable time, hard work and enthusiasm for the project. Without Ken, this project would not have been able to run, with his knowledge and guidance helping put STEM into action for all of our members.
We would also like to thank our second STEM aambassador Lindsey Yuile for his support. Lindsey helped us gain the funding for our project through a generous grant from the Royal Society Partnership Grant scheme.
The renewable Mars Rover Racers will take on a new phase in January 2013, as the Williamwood Design and Modelling club will take on the challenge of designing and building the exterior casing for the rovers.
For a picture gallery of the Rover races, click on the link below:
