Team Meeting October 6, 2015

Presentation

No formal presentation today.

Outline

We watched a Trash Trek YouTube video that showed one method to solve several of the missions. Everyone, please watch! While it is not our intent to copy these solutions, we should certainly study them and see if we can incorporate anything helpful.

Our school custodian, Mr. Z, came to talk to us about trash and recycling at our school. It was a very fun an informative interview.

We learned many interesting facts.

1. Mr. Z works 5:00AM - 2:30PM every day, and other members of the custodial staff work late afternoon into the evening.  
2. Our school recycles MANY items like paper, bottles, electronics, cardboard, and book.
3. Mr. Z expressed an interest in recycling food. 
4. We talked about batteries. The school does not use many, but they are in the large classroom clocks. 
5. The school recyclables are sorted and separated. 
6. Trash is picked up twice a week, but additional pick-ups can be requested.
7. Recyclables are picked up once a week.
8. There are special procedures county-wide for various waste items such as using bio hazard stickers on anything that has blood on it. 
9. Mr. Z has not heard about the school initiative for a Wonder Space. Shouldn't some school recyclables be headed to that room?
10. Only paper should go in the green recycle bins in each classroom. There are white collection containers on each hallway for other recyclables. Students collect the paper once a week.

We also worked on solving missions primarily the building with brackets mission model/destruction.

Homework

None between now and Thursday.

What's Next

There was some interest in improving battery recycling as our project. This would relate to school and home. Most of the team didn't think their parents recycled batteries. How many toys have double A, triple A, C or D batteries? How often do they run down? How often are they thrown away?

It is not desirable for the kids to handle old batteries, but they agreed that they could teach their parents about recycling batteries in our county (Holly Springs) and make collection tins for school and home.  I found a couple of recycling storage containers online on Pinterest. What else could we recycle to create a battery recycle container?



If the team wants to pursue this, we should:

1. Research Wake County procedures including the South Wake Multi-Material Recycling Facility in Holly Springs.  South Wake: 6130 Old Smithfield Road, Apex [map], 919-387-4312
2. Make notes on why it is so important to recycle batteries.
3. http://www.earth911.com/recycling-guide/how-to-recycle-single-use-batteries/
4. ???

Team Meetings September 23, and 24, 2015

Presentation

No formal presentation or white board today.

Outline

The kids spent a lot of time working on missions.  They are very close on several of them.

The kids also did several team building exercises including discovering a helium ring.

Homework

Read and reread the Challenge doc until you know the set-up of the missions, their names, and the rules.

What's Next

 Continue to work missions.

NC FLL Programming Workshop

Here are the slides from the NC FLL Programming Workshop that took place on 9/26 at RLC in Cary.  The workshop was very informative, and we had a good time.  I put this video together to share scenes from the workshop.

Things I took away from the day.
1. We need to test coasting to a stop instead of breaking when we have the brick sorter bin on the robot. The braking may be why the robot is dumping the bricks out early.
2. There are large, crane Lego bricks that are 2oz. each.  These are legal for helping to create a center of balance.  I found some on eBay and ordered them.
3. My Blocks keep coming up and are important.
4. We had a chance to display gracious professionalism by sharing some of our equipment during the day.

Team Building and Mission Solving September 17, 2015

Presentation

No formal presentation or white board today.

Outline

The kids did two team building exercises. The first involved cutting a banana into 5 pieces. THEN, they were told to put it back together with string and a few other supplies. Hard but fun!

The second exercise involved spaghetti and marshmallows. They were told to build a structure where each team member would add one spaghetti stick and one marshmallow and then move on to the next person.

We also continued work on solving missions. No major breakthroughs today, but the kids worked very hard.

Homework

No reading. Continue to think about how to solve your mission. Write down any ideas you have!

What's Next

Besides solving missions, the kids need to work on the programs to navigate the robot on the table to the desired mission model/position.

In order to progress on the project, the kids need to pick a trash item to center the project around.

Lego League Prep

Kitty is a very good helper when I'm prepping for Lego League:-)

Most Mondays, and sometimes on Wednesdays too, I am knee deep in Lego bricks prepping for our team meetings.

Robot Design September 16, 2015

Presentation

I did a brief presentation this week on the white board about robot design.

Robot Design - Going Straight

1. Wheelbase - Wider is better
2. Weight - Heavier is better (keeps wheels from slipping) 
3. Wheel Support - Reduce friction with bushings
4. Reusable Battery - More consistent power
5. Wall Following Helpers (wheels without rubber as guides on the side of the robot)
6. Use a Jig
7. Motor Matching - Large servo motors
8. Avoid Gear Slack
9. Center of Balance

Outline

After our talk about robot design, the kids worked on solving their missions.  One of our teams had immediate success with a solution for the sorter. Yippee! Watch the video and share in their success.

Homework

No reading.  Continue to think about missions and how to solve them.

September 9 and 10, 2015

Presentation

This week's presentation (Thursday) is located here. No presentation from Wednesday.

Outline


On Wednesday, the kids worked on the exercises in Chapters 5, 6, and 7.  They didn't get as far as I hoped.  To keep us on track, I demoed the touch sensor and the color sensor.

On Thursday, we voted for our t-shirt design, and Ms. Norwood worked with the students on the project. The team did to fun team building activities.

Homework

Write down 5 or more ideas about the mission you volunteered to work on.

Joshua/Gavin - Building with Brackets
Kenny/Camden - Power Station
Beth/Makayla - Flip Car
Luke/Jacob - Sorter
Zoey/Johnny - Composter

Come up with 2-3 piece of trash you think we can save from the landfill and how.

What's Next

Begin work on robot design and mission solutions.

Pick the piece of trash for the project.

T-Shirt Winner

The t-shirt winner is the upper left picture in the collage. We need a better team name than simply the Vance Panthers...

Behind the Scenes

I am reading the book Winning Design!: Lego Mindstorms NXT Design Patterns for Fun and Competition.  I put together the book's demobot today.  It was frustrating because the EV3 Large Servo Motors are shaped differently.  I finally figured out a way around it.

This robot drifts 1-2 inches to the right across the FLL table.  I'm not sure why.

I created the motor matching machine, also from the book, and found our large servo motors to be evenly matched.