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Programming a robotic toy car

A toy car is programmed to move between two locations on a town plan. Robots are not useful unless given instructions. Creating the right set of instructions for a programmable toy car such as the 'Pro Bot' can be seen as taking a step by step approach to solve a problem. This is sometimes described as an ‘algorithm’. It’s important to test out algorithms.

Real world problems can be solved by modelling them on a computer. Algorithms are implemented as programs on digital devices, in this case using a subset of the 'Logo' programming language. Again, it’s necessary to test and correct this code. Correcting mistakes in a program is called debugging. The program can be transferred from the computer simulation to the robot vehicle.

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5 minutes

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