By Gabrielle Branche

Synopsis: 

This lab was intended to explore the concepts of collective swarm behavior. My group and I decided to simulate lysosomes where our robots would be able to detect a foreign object, individually move to it until there is enough strength to push it out the boundary.

Results:

We coded the project as a group by splitting up the tasks and coding separately. After wee came together and compiled the codes we debugged the larger code as a group. 

We were able to get the webcam to read our code and input and anazlyse values for the QR code such that they could be sent to the microbit in a form that could be used to control the speed and direction of the bots when a foreign object was detected. 

Challenges:

While we were able to put the code together, we were not able to successfully achieve serial communication between the webcam and the microbit due to time constraints and final projects. 

Reflection:

While this lab was ultimately not completed, it was perhaps one of the most beneficial labs I have done this semester as it really brought home to concept of functions. By using functions in our code we were able to follow the process more smoothly, make more robust code and separate the tasks easily in a way that we could put it all back together again. In a way we as a team worked as a swarm because we had a challenge, divided the work and worked individually but when put together we were able to overcome a larger problem. In this way we were able to work collectively and it helped me put into perspective the benefits of swarm behaviour.