Meeting - September 28th

Robot Game progress

The kids spent tonight working on the program to complete the sorting mission.  In this mission, the robot needs to go out and spin a wheel to get the sorter to sort out the pieces that are in the hopper.  The kids decided that putting a wheel on a motor sticking out the side would be a great way to solve this issue.  They figured using this technique should allow them to complete the mission more quickly.

As they worked on getting the robot out to the sorter, they originally were using rotations (number of times the motor spins) to control how far the robot goes.  In the past we have had issues with using this method because depending on how charged the robot is, the number of spins can move the robot a different amount.  They added a color sensor onto the robot to ensure it is where they want it to be before turning.  This should allow the robot to be able to repeat the mission the same even with variations.

After getting the robot to the right spot, they needed to make sure their wheel touched the wheel on the sorter.  They had to switch out the wheel with a bigger one to make sure it met.  When they tried it, it turned out that the wheels had a lot of friction with one another and the robot was pushed off the sorter wheel.  The kids made the robot move back very slowly to compensate, and this seemed to fix the issue.

Project progress

The kids are very excited about the project this year.  We have found something that hits close to home with them.  This year's theme is Trash Trek.  They need to find issues surrounding the trash that we produce, and figure out how to solve it.

Most of the kids on the team go to Dexter schools, and they said that the school doesn't recycle anything from lunch.  They have been doing research on how much trash is produced and what kind of changes they could make to reduce the trash.

They have been working on composing an email to the principal of Creekside to have a meeting to talk about some possibilities for recycling.

Meeting September 21st

Sorry all, looks like I missed a meeting post.

Progress:
This week we split the kids into two teams.  One team worked on robot design and programming and the other did some great research on the Trash Trek challenge.

The kids had previously looked at all of the missions and noted what kinds of attachments they might want for each mission so they could figure out what the base robot design would be.  This week they started building the robot with one of the attachments that they would need.

For the project, the kids started talking about how they might be able to make a difference locally.  They all talked about how Dexter Schools don't do much recycling at lunch.  They did a lot of research to find out how much trash is generated by a typical school at lunch.  They also found some great resources for helping kids start a recycling program.

Meeting September 9th

Model Building

Unfortunately, we were a little light on attendance tonight, but with the kids we had, we were able to nearly finish all of the models.

Coach Blair, Coach Becky and Grant worked after the meeting to finish all of the models and get the table nearly set up correctly for missions.

Project

We talked a little bit about different types of trash that we generate.  We need to narrow down our options and determine what we want to learn more about.

This week I am planning on logging the trash that I generate, what I recycle, what I reuse, and what I compost.  I am also planning on doing some research to find videos of how different materials can be recycled/reused to give the kids some ideas.

Next Meeting

Reminder, we are switching to Monday meetings starting next week.