Hayhurst School Lego Robotics 2016-17
The Challenge: think of people and animals as allies in the quest to make life better for everyone. Sometimes people help animals and sometimes animals help people. Your Project mission this season is to make our interactions with animals better – hopefully better for all of us.
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1st Place IBM Strategy and Innovation Award
at the Oregon State FLL Tournament
We had a blast at the state tournament!
The Leadbusters had a strong performance in all four categories at the Oregon State First Lego League competition. They placed 11th out of 54 teams on their robot runs and won the 1st place trophy for the IBM Strategy & Innovation Award. "This award recognizes a team that uses solid engineering practices and a well‐developed strategy to design and build an innovative, high performing robot." The team was incredible!!!
The Leadbusters had a strong performance in all four categories at the Oregon State First Lego League competition. They placed 11th out of 54 teams on their robot runs and won the 1st place trophy for the IBM Strategy & Innovation Award. "This award recognizes a team that uses solid engineering practices and a well‐developed strategy to design and build an innovative, high performing robot." The team was incredible!!!
2/25/17: Preparing for State Week 6 & 7
Oh my- what a fun week we had! It felt like old times at practice. The team is running the board like the champs they are. They have cut 20 seconds off their run time, which has given them the option to add a mission. So why not fling some manure and free the panda? And why not just have a little fun? They now have the potential to score 178 points. That's 60 above their high score at the local tournament.
We also had a great visit with our friend, Steve Wille, who was the original inspiration for our project about lead in fishing tackle. Thanks for coming to see us, Steve!
We also had a great visit with our friend, Steve Wille, who was the original inspiration for our project about lead in fishing tackle. Thanks for coming to see us, Steve!
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2/11/17: Preparing for State Week 5We had just one practice this week to brush off the dust and get back into the swing of running the board. We were a little rusty but still had a few good runs. Of course, we didn't videotape the best run of 133 points- dang! We made a few minor adjustments to the attachment for the Pig to Base mission and increased the speed for the trip back. We also added a piece to the Milk Automation arm to direct the manure puck into the square- it works great! We have also been brainstorming ways to improve the Bee and the Feeding missions to make them more consistent. Next week we should have time to work out those kinks. it was a fun day together! |
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The team wanted music on this video- so here it is! 133pts!
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1/27/17: Preparing for State-Week 4We are still waiting to find out when the state tournament will be. It's hard to know how to practice when you're not sure when you'll be competing. This week we took one day to help build robots for the robotics unit in the technology classes. It was a good team challenge to divide and conquer the tasks to get everything done. It was also nice to be building again.
Thursday we got back down to business. We discussed the changes we'd like to make to our Core Values poster for state, we worked on our Robot Design presentation and ran the board. We were unable to get a perfect run but we are so close! Our high for the day was 133 points. That beat our local tournament high run by 15pts. We just keep getting better! |
We ran the board better on Thursday but we didn't videotape it- darn!
1/20/17: Preparing for State - Week 3
We are so ready to go to state- we just wish the tournament hadn't been postponed!
We spent last week talking about what we want to do to further prepare for state and how we should pace ourselves until we know the new date. We also polished up our robot runs, modified our programs slightly, fixed our jigs and developed our robot design statement. We just get better and better- ha ha. We had an "ah ah" moment when we realized what the small glitch in the Milking Automation program was. At first we thought our rest block wasn't working so we put a second one in for extra measure. Of course that was silly and it didn't work. Later we realized it was the exit condition for the loop. It's amazing how different a simple change can make. All we did was change the loop from "equals 2300 degrees" to "greater than or equal to 2300 degrees" and now it works every time. So glad we figured that out! We are trying to balance being patient and staying ready for the state tournament. It's difficult to not know when the tournament will be. We are thankful that we all like to practice! |
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Running the board- Week 2
1/7/17: Preparing for State - Week 2What a fun week! We accomplishe so much! We did some additional modifications on our arms and attachments to make them easier to get on and off. We worked as a team to find ways to be faster with our set ups and robot runs. We were able to run the board much faster and more consistently by the end of practice on Thursday. Our last run was so much fun! This team is beginning to experience "The Swing".
We also worked out our Robot Design statement and the details of our Core Values poster. We did our research presentation and blew Fran away because we all still know our lines- ha ha! Many thanks to Erica who helped repair our presentation boards! How's that for a crazy productive week? Look out Oregon State FLL teams- here come the Leadbusters! |
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12/22/16: Preparing for State- Week 1 We were all happy to be working with each other again this week. We made a few decisions about what we should do to prepare for state. Our main focus was to improve the stability of our robot design, improve our attachments, and to get our robot to perform consistently. We have also considered doing the shark mission first.
We have made a ton of progress in just two days. We redesigned the bee arm, the front attachment and the milking machine arm. We added an easy on/off attachment to the front to keep the touch sensor from moving the shark tank around. We switched the pig/bee arm to the right side so that it is easier to remove. We also moved the milking machine arm to the right and added a spot to put a manure puck- which will give us 5 more points. Then we added an arm on the right side to pick up the Zoologist (15 pts). It's amazing how much better everything is working! |
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We won the Core Values Award and we are going to State!!!
The FLL Tournament at Catlin Gabel 12/4/16What a fun day at the tournament. The Leadbusters rocked the house!
We won the Core Values Award and are going to
the FLL State Tournament in January! The Core Values award celebrates a team that is empowered by their FLL experience and displays extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit. This award recognizes a team that is able to accomplish more together than they could as individuals through shared goals, strong communication, effective problem solving and excellent time management. This award recognizes a team whose members show each other and other teams respect at all times. They recognize that both friendly competition and mutual gain are possible, on and off the playing field. |
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Week Thirteen: 12/2/16This was our final week of practice and boy were we busy! Tricia and Shelly helped us practice group activites for the Core Values judging, David did Robot Design judging sessions and we practiced our presentation. We also did our presentation for the 4th and 5th grade classes at school. That was fun!
Some of us reworked our programs to shave off precious seconds so that we could finish all of our missions within the 2 1/2 minute limit. Our last run on the board before we left to go to the tournament was totally epic- we ran all the missions perfectly with at least a nanosecond to spare. It was amazing!!!! That's 153 points! |
Week Twelve- running the board.
Week Twelve: 11/26/16We only had one practice this week and it was full of challenges. We are doing our best to pull all of the loose ends together. We finished the Core Values poster, we started working on our research presentation and we began working through our robot runs. We have a lot of work to do to polish things up but we have faith that we will get there.
We are excited that all of the programs are working....well, at least most of the time. Our biggest challenge is to run them all in the measly 2 1/2 minutes we have. The team is doing a great job of finding new ways to cut down the time it takes to change out arms, add attachments and position the robot. It's not an easy task under so much pressure! We can't believe that the tournament is just a week away. Where has the time gone? This team will be ready. They are the AWESOME Leadbusters! |
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Proof that the refrigerator is working!
The Leadbusters doing their team cheer.
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Week Ten and Eleven: 11/17/16What a wild two weeks! We are all beginning to feel the pressure of the tournament. All of a sudden, it seems so close. We are down to two robots, although we favor the blue. We did a bunch of finishing touches on our programs and did some modifications to our attachments. We were a little nervous when the refrigerator program still wasn't working because so many other missions depend on that. However, by the end of yesterday, the refrigerator is now working consistently! Whew!
The presentation script is completed. We chose our parts, read the script out loud and then worked on props and boards. Erica and Dejon were super helpful. We also came up with a team cheer- which was way fun. We played the music loud and sang and danced. I think we may be ready for the tournament after all. |
Week Nine: running the board
Week Nine: 11/4/16Is it really week nine already? Oh my! This team is on a roll! We have 10 missions very close to working and one more that doesn't bring in any points but sets the team up for several other big point missions. The team calculated that if all goes well, we have a potential of 149 points!
We spent the week clarifying the research project and narrowing down the sinker design. We are so close to a final design. Do we keep stainless as our material? Do we eliminate the magnet? Do we add holes? We voted two of our robots off the missions board this week. We kept the two that performed best for the most programs. Soon we will be down to one robot. We've been working on accurate robot placement, well built arms and jigs and working together with our partners. We have really struggled to get the food from the refrigerator, which is a critical mission, but are confident that we will figure out a solution. Go Leadbusters! |
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Week 8: running the board
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Week Eight: 10/28/16We had a fun week! We made great strides on our research project. Each team member designed a lead-free sinker and pitched their idea to the rest of the team. There were a lot of different ideas for material, including bamboo, hemp fabric, stainless steel and stone. Each member chose either a traditional sinker design or a claw design. The team voted to decide what features their team sinker should have. We are getting close to having a team design!
The team started sharing ideas for team t-shirt designs. These kids are so creative. We look forward to hearing more ideas this week. We also made a lot of progress in programming the robots. We added several missions: the milking machine, feeding the animals and getting the food. That's seven missions we have working or almost working. The partners are designing arms and programs to complete these tasks. We haven't added up our potential points lately but we are sure we have surpassed 120! |
Week Seven - running the robot
Week Seven: 10/21/16WOW! What a week! The team is making great progress on their research project. We all know way more about lead-free fishing sinkers than we ever expected. We've heard back from Rockybrook sinkers and Stoney River sinkers and have emailed them with questions. We are hoping to Skype with Stoney River sinkers next week.
We have made great strides in improving our programs and our robot design. We have repositioned our color sensors and added a touch sensor. We've created attachments that can easily be placed on and removed from the front of our robot. We've perfected our setups and are working well with our partners to run the robot quickly and accurately. Best of all, though, is that we have five missions working consistently! What a blast! |
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Week Six - running the robot.
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Week Six: 10/14/16What a busy week! We had a visit from Dave from Dave's Tangle Free. His company makes lead-free, steel sinkers. He brought samples for all of us to take home and he told about why he decided to start his company. An avid fisherman, Dave became concerned about lead when his child was born. He wanted to remove lead from his home and he wanted to prevent more lead from being left in waterways. His steel sinkers have a durable plastic coating and a brass loop fitting for attaching to the fishing line. He says that his design is slicker and less likely to get caught on rocks. The brass fitting resists rust and doesn't break the line like some other fittings do. He taught us a few things about fishing that we did not know, too. We are vary thankful he was willing to come visit us at school! Thank you, Dave!
We were excited to finally start programming the robots. In just two days we have made significant progress. We have three missions working and one on the verge of working. YAY! Our other big news of the week is that we now officially have a team name. We are the LEADBUSTERS! |
Week Five: 10/7/16We had an exciting week. We made a lot of headway on our research project. We emailed the Oregon Lakes Association and they emailed us back! They are excited that we are doing this project and have offered to help us with our research. Thank you Paul Robertson (President) and Steve Wille (Director). We are eager to see what we can learn from them. We have decided to see if we can improve on a lead-free sinker design. If that doesn't pan out, we'd like to try to change the law or come up with an exchange program. We have some work to do!
We finished the robot designs with our engineer partners and shared them with the team. Then we voted on which one we felt was best. It was a tough choice. Once we'd decided, we built three more to match the original. We made a few improvements and then tested all four robots. They work great! Now we need to add sensors and start tackling the missions! |
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Week Four: 9/30/16We have decided to change direction on the research project. While "lead" is still the issue, we are now researching lead sinkers and their impact on fish and wildlife in local waterways. We've learned a lot about lead and the harm it does to animals and humans and thought this would be an interesting direction to take.
We worked with our engineer partners to begin designing robots. We were excited to finally be working the robots! We were surprised at how difficult it was to attach the motors and to build a sturdy robot. We downloaded a simple program and tested our robots on the floor. We observed how straight they went, how balanced they were and how easy we could attach sensors and motors to the frame. Then we brought them to the competition board to see how well they might perform for the missions - too wide, too tall, etc.? We'll make some minor changes on Wednesday and then vote on a team robot. We are all eager to begin programming the robots to complete the missions! |
Week Three: 9/23/16We started the week talking a little more about the research project. We are concerned that we may have reached a dead end with this topic. A lot of us have discovered that animals can become sick from lead in the environment, too. The last thing we want to do is harm any animals. We have decided to give this idea one more week to see if we have any breakthroughs or new leads. If we do not, we will move on to a new idea.
We finally finished building the competition models. Whew! We all chose at least one mission to be an expert on. We shared our expertise with the rest of the team and began talking about board strategy. This is a complicated board. It also seems like the missions aren't worth as many points as they were last year but we are excited to rise to the challenge and to squeak out as many points as we can. We ended the day pulling apart the old robots so that we can begin designing new ones next week. We are excited to start building the robots! |
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Week Two: 9/16/17We started the week sharing or ideas for the research project. We had ideas for squirrels, elephants, ducks, and much more. When we met the second time, we'd just heard about the lead issues in the paint of our school and wondered if we could find a way to work with animals to detect or eliminate lead. We will see what we can find in our homework searches this weekend.
We tried really hard to complete the mission models but still have some building to do. Thank you to Dejon for coming to our rescue! We are getting close! It's fun to see the challenge board come to life. Once we are done with the models, we will study the challenges, come up with a preliminary strategy and then begin designing the robot. The season is already moving too fast! |
Week One: 9/10/16Let the season begin!
We had a great first week. We started by creating a team contract. We brainstormed about what behaviors make a team work well. Everyone contributed and everyone signed the contract. We hung the contract over our challenge board to remind us of what we agreed upon. We learned that everyday we have opening and closing jobs and that most days we work with new partners. We started this week by working with a partner to build the challenge board models. We have to be very careful to build everything exactly as the instructions define because our models need to match the ones at the tournament. We were missing quite a few pieces in our kit but we are making do with what we have. It's fun to see the board come to life. Our goal is to finish next Wednesday but we still have a lot to build! |
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