🎒 What you need

a cloth for a blindfold
a light stick or a length of stiff wire
a few obstacles: tins, stones, a chair

✋ Do this

Lay out an obstacle course. Nothing sharp, nothing precious.
Blindfold the robot. First run: no stick, no help. Watch them creep and bump. Time it.
Second run: give them the stick. Same course. Time it again and compare the two numbers out loud.
Now write the rule they were using: 'If the stick touches something, stop and turn.' One sentence.
Swap the stick for a hand held out flat. Which sensor is better, and why? Argue it.
Last run: someone calls 'hot' and 'cold' as the robot moves. That is a different kind of sensor — which was faster?

💡 Why it works

That stick is a bump sensor, and real robots use exactly the same idea: a little switch on a whisker that closes when it hits something. Better robots use sound or light to feel walls before touching them, but the rule inside is always the same shape — if sensed, then act. You wrote that rule yourself.

🔥 Challenge

Make a course with a narrow gate. Can your stick-robot find the gap without ever touching the sides?

📖 New words

sensorthe part of a robot that notices something in the world

obstaclea thing in the way that the robot must not hit

🦯

Whisker Wise

Tap when you have finished this module.