The following are project ideas that you might use to lead yourself or others through learning how to program and create designs using the LogoTurtle floor robot.

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Introductory Exercises

 

Calibrate the turtle.

 

After building the physical turtle and the electronics, the first procedure the turtle runs after downloading test.txt is square. This procedure helps you calibrate the turtle. You calibrate the turtle by adjusting the wheel base until the square it draws is nearly 90° at each angle. The easiest way to accomplish the calibration is to use a small wood shim between the stepper motor brackets on the turtle.

 

 

 

 

Design with Lines

 

Using lines, overlapping lines, and combinations of angles, what designs can the turtle draw?

 

 

Draw Your Initials

 

You might want to get out of your seat and try walking out the directions the turtle needs to move to write your name. TurtleArt or Turtle Blocks is another good place to work out the moves.

 

You could also work towards abstraction of the initials by repeating and overlapping them, perhaps in different pen colors.

 

 

Draw a Polygon

 

The turtle comes knowing how to draw a square, a procedure included in test.txt.

 

repeat 4 [fd 100 lt 90]

 

What other polygons can you program the turtle to draw?

 

 

TurtleArt: 3 Shapes by Josh Burker

 

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Intermediate Exercises

 

Repeat a Polygon

 

What kind of design can you create by drawing a polygon, rotating the turtle a little, and drawing the polygon again?

 

 

Experiment with Arcs

 

The turtle knows how to arclt and arcrt. By providing the angle and radius, you can program the turtle to draw arcs and circles.

 

 

Create a procedure that includes arcs in the design.

 

 

Draw Something Representational

 

Program a procedure or a set of procedures to draw a representational picture of something: a house, a flower, a rainbow, or whatever you imagine.

 

 

 

Geometry Everywhere: Hexagons by Josh Burker

 

Nature and TurtleArt by Josh Burker

 

Incorporate the Servo in the Design

 

The turtle is able to lift and lower its pen. Explore a design that uses the pen up state as well as the pen down state. For example, drawing Dreamtime-inspired art can be part of a more formal exploration of Aboriginal Australian culture.

 

 

Making Dreamtime Designs in MicroWorlds by Gary Stager

 

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Advanced Exercises

 

Experiment with Fractals

 

The Dragon Curve is a good fractal to explore using the turtle because of its simplicity.

 

 

Exploring Dragon Curves in TurtleArt by Josh Burker

LogoTurtle Fractal Designs by Josh Burker

 

Tiled Designs

 

Repeating a simple design that overlaps to create additional shapes.

 

 

TurtleArt: Islamic Tiles by Josh Burker

 

Explore Recursion

 

Use a loop [  ] function in your procedure instead of tail recursion. 

 

 

Generative Art

 

Erik has a wonderful overview with some great examples of using the turtle to explore generative art.

 

 

Generative Art with the LogoTurtle by Erik Nauman

 

Use the Photocell

 

Use the photocell to affect the inputs in your Logo procedures. In the example below, programmed by Erik, the sensor faced the light and as the turtle turned away from the light the curve radius decreased.

 

 

If you use the pin marked A0 you should be able to do the following from Logo:

print a0

or

repeat 100 [print a0 wait 100]

 

to startup

pd wait 1000

let [n a0]

repeat 200 [

arcrt 10 :n

make "n a0

]

pu

alloff

end

 

 

Collaborative Drawing

 

Use two or more turtle programmed to collaborate on a design. Can the two turtles draw at the same time on the same piece without interfering with one another?

 

 

Draw with Light

 

Erin Riley added an LED throwie to her turtle. She built a darkroom for it to wander in and photographed the turtle with a slow exposure.

 

https://twitter.com/eeriley99/status/680158896758075392

 

Dark room set-up. pic.twitter.com/qidqxdN9Vo

— Erin Riley (@eeriley99) December 24, 2015

Draw a Constellation

 

Use a picture of a constellation as a guide. A protractor and ruler helps you get the angles and proportion right. This example experiments with using the pen down and wait commands to let the pen "bleed" a bit into the paper to form the stars. It needs some more debugging.

 

 

 

 

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Additional Ideas

 

Draw with different mediums

• A hopper full of sand
• Spray paint
• Water colors