Robot Attachment Design

Below is a checklist to consider when designing your robot attachments.  The purpose of the checklist is to ensure that you consider a wide range of designs.  If you don't consider a variety of designs it's easy to focus on the first one you think of when simpler and/or better designs might come to mind if you just think a bit harder.

Mission Design Checklist

1) What's the simplest thing that could possibly work?

2) Is an attachment really necessary?

3) Could we accomplish the mission just by pushing?

4) Does the robot need to leave the base to accomplish the mission?

5) Does the attachment require power?

6) If the attachment requires power, must that power be provided by a motor?  Or could we use:

    a) Gravity

    b) Friction

    c) Elastics

    d) Pneumatics

7) If the attachment requires power, does it require a program?  Or can it be triggered by:

    a) Sudden acceleration or braking

    b) Contact with a wall or element of the mission table

    c) Contact with another attachment

7) Does the mission require one or more sensors?

8) Does the mission require the robot to be in a specific location?

9) If the robot must be in a specific location, can that location be reached by:

    a) Dead reckoning (simply counting wheel rotations and angles turned)

    b) Contact with a wall or mission table element

    c) Range finder

    d) Color finder

    e) Line finder

    f) Touch sensor

Week 5

FINANCES

This week we reviewed our finances.  The Toonie Toss was a big success, raising almost $150 after paying expenses.  This leaves us with $280.  We still need to buy t-shirts, and may have some other incidental expenses, but we're in pretty good shape.

CORE VALUES

We reviewed the FLL Core Values.  These account for 1/3 of our overall grade, so it's important that everyone a) know them, and b) practice them.  Each week we will do a team building exercise that allows us to work on those values.  This week's exercise required working as a team to build the tallest structure we could in 5 minutes, using a deck of playing cards.  The steps to doing well on this type of exercise include:

a) Having on member read the task to the rest of the team.

b) Verify that each team member understands the task.

c) If there are any questions, clarify them with the judges before starting.

d) Allocate some time at the start of the task for collecting ideas and dividing work.

e) Work together, or in subgroups, to accomplish the required task.

f) Enjoy yourselves and make sure that each member is listened to and valued.

PROJECT

We studied and approach to learning that involved simply listening to a set of instructions.  Helen divided the team into pairs, and gave each team nine cards.  She then described the steps involved in having one member of each pair choose a card out of the nine, and having the other member figure out which card it was.  Some teams did well listening to and remembering the instructions.  Others had difficulty. For video instructions, see below:

Next week we will try a different approach to teaching and learning, explained by one of the experts we'll be interviewing.

MISSION/ROBOT

With our mission table complete we are working on designing the robot.  Olivia and I went to a FLL conference at Bayview Glen School in Toronto.  The conference covered robot design and programming, among other things.  Among the concepts they recommended were the use of a simple base, to which mission-specific attachments could be added.  They emphasized using non-motorized attachments as much as possible.  Today we discussed and showed:

a) gravity driven attachments

b) rubber band driven attachment

c) pneumatic (pressurized air) driven attachments

d) friction driven attachments

e) motor driven attachments (including a scissor jack).

We also showed a line-following robot, which was taught at the conference.

Today we considered how to incorporate those ideas into attachments for our own missions.

Last week I recommended looking at the Lego Vinir videos on YouTube.  They also have some great information on their site (http://en-lego-vinir.weebly.com/our-robot.html).  See, for example, their robot base:

If you watch the video you will see examples of attachment types (a) through (e) above, i.e., gravity, rubber band, pneumatic, etc.  See if you can find an example of each for next week, along with a way we could use it on our own design.