For our project, we decided to integrate entertainment magic and the illusion of moving objects. Our robot is decorated as a wizard, resembling Harry Potter. It is wearing a wizard hat and holds a wand in its right arm. We programmed the brick to play the Harry Potter theme song throughout the performance (wrote the song in piano player). The robot starts off by playing the theme song, moves its arm up and down (resembling a spell being cast), and then starts to move an object (cereal jar) towards it.

    We started off by building the “human” figure of the robot (arms, legs) in order to perform the spell-cast action and keep the robot balanced (the wand is very heavy). Then we decorated the brick with a wizard hat (thanks to the Craft Center) and a REAL wizard wand. Our next focus was the code, which we struggled with because we couldn’t get the brick to play the song in a loop. Then we set up the behind-the-scenes portion, in which we had a motor balanced on top of a tower that was grounded to the floor. This motor had a wheel (without grip) attached to it as a method of reeling in the string, thus, causing the jar to mysteriously move forward.

    Overall, we created a robot version of Harry Potter, casting spells and magically moving things.