Meeting 16 of the Robotic Dudes was fairly low key today. We hadn't met last week due to school being out of session on Thursday. Next week is our final meeting, and that evening we will hold a demonstration/competition among the various teams at the school for the families.
Some involved are very hesitant to call it a competition, favoring instead the demonstration aspect of it, but Lego talks about coopertition being a key principle of the challenges - a combination of cooperation and competition. We want to work together and learn from each other, but we also want to try hard to win. So I hope we win. ;)
We kept it kind of quiet today. We had everyone work on repeating their tasks several times to make sure everything was set up where it needed to be, with the robots pointing in just the right direction. A rotation of just a couple degrees in angle could result in the robot being several inches off from where they needed to be for their tasks.
There were one or two of the team who were starting to work on a totally new task on the complete opposite side of the field, which I tried to explain wasn't likely to be done by the time we show things off next week. In the end, I just let them do what they wanted to do.
This whole first year really has been setting us up for success next year. There are a lot of things we'll be able to look at doing different or better, in addition to having some experienced people on the team. The one thing from my observations and interactions that I'd like to see is just overall taking things a little more seriously. Now, I'm all for having fun and enjoying one another's company, so I'm not talking about being more serious. We just need some more organization and help with focusing on working on the tasks and learning more about methods of programming that will take our performance to the next level. I'd also like to not being losing and breaking parts all the time. Half the challenge board is disassembled, so we can't even do all parts of the challenge. If someone wants to do a Legos club where they just build whatever they want, someone can sponsor that, but for Lego Robotics Club, we should be building some awesome robots. I'm looking forward to that.
Thursday, March 22, 2018
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Demo Day
We don't have a robotics club meeting today, since it is a half day of school. Last week, we did have our 15th meeting. We are looking at holding our competition / demonstration at the end of this month, just before spring break. The idea is then at that time, a lot of things like soccer and other outdoor activities start happening as the weather warms up and we get closer to the end of the school year. So I think once we have that demonstration, while it's possible that some of the boys may want to continue meeting, we will likely be done for the year at that point. We're looking into shirts or medals or something to hand out as a reward for participating.
So last week we worked for a while on polishing up what we were working on. We talked about being realistic and what they thought we could get finished up by the end of the month. I had each of the small teams work on what they were close on and demonstrate what they had. They didn't have to be perfect, just show where they were at, so we could judge how close it seemed like they were.
We basically have four activities that look like they are close, that people have been working on. One of them is pretty complicated and may or may not be finished. Two are basically functioning most of the time now. Every now and then they don't totally work, but as they work on fine tuning them, such as making sure the robots start from the same place every time and so on, I think that success rate will go up. The fourth task should be simple, but more often than not it ends up being kind of a brute force, run over the parts type of thing, which maybe technically works, but it would be nice if we can get that one working without knocking everything over.
It was nice to see some success. I know part of the goal with the robotics this year is to be prepared to do something bigger (and earlier) next near. Most of the tasks we've completed are fairly simple ones, close to the home base and don't take much maneuvering to get to. What would be great is if next year we could purchase the whole challenge kit and have the table ready right as school was starting. That way we could have the teams start meeting and knock out some of the basic tasks quickly, freeing them up to work on some of the more advanced parts or the ones that are difficult to get to on the other side of the board.
So last week we worked for a while on polishing up what we were working on. We talked about being realistic and what they thought we could get finished up by the end of the month. I had each of the small teams work on what they were close on and demonstrate what they had. They didn't have to be perfect, just show where they were at, so we could judge how close it seemed like they were.
We basically have four activities that look like they are close, that people have been working on. One of them is pretty complicated and may or may not be finished. Two are basically functioning most of the time now. Every now and then they don't totally work, but as they work on fine tuning them, such as making sure the robots start from the same place every time and so on, I think that success rate will go up. The fourth task should be simple, but more often than not it ends up being kind of a brute force, run over the parts type of thing, which maybe technically works, but it would be nice if we can get that one working without knocking everything over.
It was nice to see some success. I know part of the goal with the robotics this year is to be prepared to do something bigger (and earlier) next near. Most of the tasks we've completed are fairly simple ones, close to the home base and don't take much maneuvering to get to. What would be great is if next year we could purchase the whole challenge kit and have the table ready right as school was starting. That way we could have the teams start meeting and knock out some of the basic tasks quickly, freeing them up to work on some of the more advanced parts or the ones that are difficult to get to on the other side of the board.
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Slogging Through
Meeting 14 was last week. We had most of the team there, but with some of the things we had put in place previously in terms of organization, we were generally on task. One of the things we need to do, which was suggested by our assistant coach, is to have each group schedule a time during our meeting where they will have access to the robot. We have two robots, ours and the one belonging to another team. We share since we aren't there at the same time, so it makes a lot of sense to use each other's robots. Still, only two robots, when we have 4 teams of 2 or 3 people each, there is still a robot bottleneck.
Sometimes you can test things out in your head and build accessories and do other things that don't necessarily require the robot itself. Other times, you just have to run it and see what happens.
We have a few portions of the challenge that are there or at least close to there. One is the water filter, which is just pushing in a certain spot to slide the filter into place. Another is the rain. It requires driving at just the right angle and bumping the switch that drops the water. Those two are pretty much working. Another is the pump. That team kind of comes and goes in terms of how close they are, but it's pretty straight forward - just driving forward and hitting one of a couple different levers. Each of those three are close to the home base and just require a quick drive and pushing, sliding, or lifting a single switch. Another more complicated aspect of the challenge is removing and replacing the broken water pipe. That one is close, although we need to simplify it. Right now, he's trying to carry out the new piece, set it down to remove the old piece, and then he will pick up the new piece again and drop it into position. I think setting it down and picking it up again is going to be error-prone, so we need to talk about how to simplify that action.
There are several parts of the challenge that are missing from the board. I'm not totally sure if that is because they are just put away because they were broken or otherwise disassembled. The STEM Lab where we meet is used by several robotics teams, plus several other student groups like Odyssey of the Mind, and I'm sure there are others. The problem is that there isn't always respect for each other's things in there.
I did ask one of the team members to leave about halfway through, since he was not on task and was throwing things around the room. The kits are expensive. I'm sure we've already lost a few pieces due to things falling on the floor. As soon as they start throwing things, though, we're dealing with both losing the Lego pieces and damaging things that belong to other groups who use the room.
Sometimes you can test things out in your head and build accessories and do other things that don't necessarily require the robot itself. Other times, you just have to run it and see what happens.
We have a few portions of the challenge that are there or at least close to there. One is the water filter, which is just pushing in a certain spot to slide the filter into place. Another is the rain. It requires driving at just the right angle and bumping the switch that drops the water. Those two are pretty much working. Another is the pump. That team kind of comes and goes in terms of how close they are, but it's pretty straight forward - just driving forward and hitting one of a couple different levers. Each of those three are close to the home base and just require a quick drive and pushing, sliding, or lifting a single switch. Another more complicated aspect of the challenge is removing and replacing the broken water pipe. That one is close, although we need to simplify it. Right now, he's trying to carry out the new piece, set it down to remove the old piece, and then he will pick up the new piece again and drop it into position. I think setting it down and picking it up again is going to be error-prone, so we need to talk about how to simplify that action.
There are several parts of the challenge that are missing from the board. I'm not totally sure if that is because they are just put away because they were broken or otherwise disassembled. The STEM Lab where we meet is used by several robotics teams, plus several other student groups like Odyssey of the Mind, and I'm sure there are others. The problem is that there isn't always respect for each other's things in there.
I did ask one of the team members to leave about halfway through, since he was not on task and was throwing things around the room. The kits are expensive. I'm sure we've already lost a few pieces due to things falling on the floor. As soon as they start throwing things, though, we're dealing with both losing the Lego pieces and damaging things that belong to other groups who use the room.
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Organization
For meeting 13, we had an interesting idea from our assistant coach. Basically, we have been having problem with focus and getting the team to stick to the various assignments they had. He mentioned that he's surprised adults are able to get as much development done as they do, as they often run into similar issues. But even more for the elementary school kids, who don't have experience.
The suggestion, which we jumped on and had the team do is organize themselves into several small teams and then write down those assignments. It's not that we hadn't tried that previous, since we had, but actually writing it down and making sure everyone was happy with their assignment seemed like a good idea. For the rest of the meeting, as I saw someone wandering around or off task, I'd just ask them what their task was and if they were working on it. More often than not, they'd get back on track.
We had a couple of the teams either be able to accomplish their task or at least get close to it, which is encouraging. Others are still trying to do things that are probably more complicated than they need to be.
The suggestion, which we jumped on and had the team do is organize themselves into several small teams and then write down those assignments. It's not that we hadn't tried that previous, since we had, but actually writing it down and making sure everyone was happy with their assignment seemed like a good idea. For the rest of the meeting, as I saw someone wandering around or off task, I'd just ask them what their task was and if they were working on it. More often than not, they'd get back on track.
We had a couple of the teams either be able to accomplish their task or at least get close to it, which is encouraging. Others are still trying to do things that are probably more complicated than they need to be.
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