Thinking of a robot which can draw basic shapes upon command. Ideally, a voice command, but if that’s too complex, we can start off with a different type of command. I’m a python programmer, but have zero experience with adruino and the like. Please give me some advice to help me get started.
help me get started
You mean help her get started, right? Science fair is for kids, after all.
As a has-been science fair dad the best advice I can give: pick a different project. If you want to build a voice activated drawing robot with her at home, go for it. Sounds like a wonderful time and a great project for a girl interested in robotics.
It’s a bad science fair project for a primary student. Science fair projects, first and foremost, need to be the entrants own work. They should be able explain the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of all the steps and actually be able to do them. “[Dad/Mom]…” can be an explanation sometimes, but not this time. Second, unless it is an ‘engineering’ fair, it need to contain a testable hypothesis that is, you know, tested. If your project does not primarily involve measuring something, it’s almost certainly not right for a science fair. Third, rein it in a bit. You have chosen a huge project. It’s the kind of thing that could genuinely take months of your time even as an experienced roboticist. At least for a young kid, pick something where the write-up is most of the work. You should be able to do 90% of the experimental work in an afternoon. It can take longer to finish, but in a ‘checking in’ kind of way; waiting for mold to grow or an egg shell to dissolve.
Not trying to be a dick, but I really believe sticking with this project is setting you both up for failure.
Dude, if you need your 9 year old daughter’s help with this, I think you should try something more basic.
One of her classmates did a jumping robot for this science fair, and she’s now pumped about building her own robot for next year. It would mostly be me, but I’ll teach her stuff and she’ll hopefully pick up knowledge about these things over the course of building this. It’s only due next year, so we have a whole year.
Bruh my ex defended her bachelors with a project exactly like this. It involves a CNC machine (stepper motors, drivers, control board, frame, CNC senders), servoes to pick up / put down the pen so it doesn’t constantly draw etc.
It isn’t a science fair project and will cost a shitload to make. Voice activation is also another beast entirely.
I built two homemade CNCs for milling, if you don’t know what you are doing, then it will take half a year to understand everything, wire it, setup a frame etc. Impossible to do for a 9 year old (and I don’t think science faires are for the parents to make shit for their kids)
Is the science fair looking for DIY projects or experiments? If experiments, as I suspect most science fairs are, what is the experiment? What is the hypothesis?
Next, let me tell you a little story about my buddy taking his Significant Other on a camping trip. He was experienced and all about it, SO grew up in a city with no yard and thinks the outdoors is unnecessary. Cue a backcountry trip with rain, raccoons getting into the food, colder temps than expected, and SO will now never give Buddy’s favorite hobby another shot. It is ruined for SO forever. If you are trying to get a young person interested in STEM stuff, don’t be like Buddy. Introduce them via a light-duty, fun, heavily vetted project you know you can be successful at. Doubly so when there is a deadline for success imposed by the science fair.
There are companies online that sell Line Follower Robot kits. If building a LF robot meets the intent of the science fair, consider one of those kits instead of attempting to design it from scratch.
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kiddo is introduced to age-appropriate skills and concepts
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everybody knows an adult helped her, she’s getting no boost from a complex self-invented thing that she obviously didn’t do herself
You might consider doing something with the Lego robotics stuff, something like Nxt-sketcher.
