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Activity

Light Follower

Make your Finch follow a flashlight beam!

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INTERMEDIATE: Add Sensors

Required Lessons: Sensor Overview, Direct Control

Make your Finch model phototropic, or light following, behavior:

  1. Control the left wheel’s speed directly with the right light sensor, and vice versa.
  2. Indicate the values of the sensors by setting the red brightness of the first tail LED to the right light sensor and the blue brightness of the first tail LED to the left light sensor.

    INTEGRATION

    Many animals and plants sense and respond to light – from cockroaches that exhibit light-avoiding behavior, to sunflowers that track the sun as it moves through the sky.

    Light following behavior is also an important milestone in the history of the robotics. Two of the first truly autonomous robots ever built, Elmer and Elsie, demonstrated light seeking behavior in the 1940s.