Programming instructions

Reference
Project Lead The Way © and Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy © / For use with VEX
®
Robotics Systems
Glossary • 4
Glossary continued
Driving Gear: When considering a pair of connected gears, the driving gear is the one whose movement is the cause of
the other’s. If axles are being considered, the driving gear is the gear on the driving axle. See also Driving Axle, Driven
Gear.
Engineering: The study and application of science, mathematics, and technology to nd solutions to real-world problems.
Engineering Journal: A notebook which serves as a personal organizer for a project. It should maintain and order
all items related to the project, including research, brainstorming ideas, schedules, daily activities, design reviews,
presentations, etc.
Environmental: Of or pertaining to the environment, sometimes the natural world around us and sometimes the area in
which the robot will be operating.
External Design Review: See Design Review, External
Feedback: See Input. Input, such as what a sensor gives to the VEX. For example, a robot uses Light Sensor feedback to
follow a line. By extension, feedback can also mean human response, both positive and negative. Efciently gathering and
making use of available human feedback, both internal and external, will tend to help the success of any project.
Follow-up Proposal: A second proposal made to continue work begun in the rst. A follow-up proposal typically takes into
account both the successes and the failures of the original project, and is based on new perspectives gained from it.
Funding: Money made available for a specic purpose, like a project.
Frequency: The number of waves that pass by a point in space in a certain
amount of time. For counting purposes, one “wave” is usually considered an
entire cycle from peak to peak (i.e. two “tops” of waves pass by) or trough
to trough (two “bottoms” pass by). Frequency is usually expressed in hertz
(Hz), which is one wave per second.
Gantt Chart: A bar chart that illustrates a project schedule broken into
subschedules for each of the tasks needed to complete the project.
Gear Ratio: The number of times the driving axle in a system must spin to
make the driven axle turn once. With gears, the gear ratio can be found by
counting the number of teeth on the driven gear, and dividing by the number
of teeth on the driving gear.
Gear Train: A series of gears that transmit power between axles.
Gimbal: A mechanical device that allows the rotation of an object in multiple dimensions.
GPS: An acronym which stands for Global Positioning System. A GPS receiver can accurately determine its location
(latitude, longitude and altitude) by processing signals sent by more than two dozen GPS satellites.
Graph: A line or curve representing the variation of one quantity with another.
Graphing: Representing data on a graph.
Hertz: Unit of measurement for the frequency of repeating events, dened as one repetition per second. With sound,
for instance, frequency is the number of pressure waves that travel past a certain point in a certain amount of time...
each time the “peak” of a wave travels by that point, you can count one cycle of the wave. Thus, if ten peaks travel by in
one second, the wave has a frequency of 10 hertz. Many waves travel so quickly that thousands of peaks will go by in a
second, thus the kilohertz (kHz, 1000 Hz) is a frequently used unit also.
Distance
High Frequency
Low Frequency
Pressure
Frequency
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