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Robots are becoming increasingly common in the world around us. They’re a major part of factories, and they help build things. Robots defuse bombs for police departments. They even explore other planets like Mars! Building a robot is pretty difficult to do at home, but luckily there are two sides to every robot. There’s the hardware, the physical parts that make up a robot, and there’s also the software, the programming that tells the robot what to do. Without software, a robot wouldn’t be able to do anything at all, and programmers have to make sure the instructions in the software are perfect because the robot will follow them exactly. If there’s even a little mistake, the robot won’t do what you intend it to do!
This activity has you work with a grown up, who will be the Human Robot, and learn just how careful you have to be when programming a robot.
Materials:
- A grown up
- Bread
- Peanut butter (or jelly if you’re allergic to peanuts)
- A butter knife
- Paper plates
- Paper and pencils
Process:
- Set your bread, peanut butter or jelly, butter knife, and paper plates on the kitchen table. Have your grown-up sit down at the table.
- Your job is to get your grown up, the Human Robot, to make a sandwich with the peanut butter or jelly. Since they’re a robot, you’ll have to create some software for them: use your paper and pencil to write a list of instructions that your grown up has to follow exactly.
- It’s really important that your Human Robot follows your instructions exactly. They will do whatever you say, exactly the way you wrote it, so be careful and make sure you have all the steps they’ll need to make a sandwich.
- How did it go? Did the sandwich get made? Probably not on your first try, which means you have a bug in your program. Try rewriting it. Add steps that you forgot, or make your instructions clearer where they were unclear.
- Keep going until the Human Robot manages to make a sandwich!
Summary:
Robots (and computers too!) always do exactly what a person tells them to do. They don’t have any brains except the ones we give them with the software that we write for them. It’s really important that software is as well written as possible so that the robot does what it needs to do. In 1999, one tiny software error ruined a mission to Mars when the space probe got too close to the planet and broke apart!
