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Hurray! We are in the
Robotics Competition!
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Mrs Tan brought us to the Science Centre for the
announcement of the NJRC 2001 Challenge. We
felt very excited and the auditorium was very cold.
We had problems carrying the equipment back. It
was very heavy.
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Luckily, Mrs Tan managed to get someone to help
us. We arrived in school in Mrs Tan's father's car.
Mr Samuel Wong helped us to carry the equipment
to the staff room. We went home with a lollipop
each.
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Mrs. Tan told us to look for the meaning of
"nanomedicine". We did not have any idea what it
was.
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In the evening, we spent all our time surfing in the
Internet.No sooner or later, we found 16 pages of
write-up on "nanomedicine". Mrs Tan also surfed
the Internet to source for information. She found
more than we did!
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As for the robotics lesson, we learnt to build the
robot with a light sensor and programme the robot
to go through the N-shaped track. We learnt that
shadows would affect the light intensity and when
the robot is turning, the power level must not be too
high. We also learnt that the robots must be steady.
Like today, our robot and another team's robot
collided into each other. Their light sensor came off
but ours was still intact. Hee!
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Today, Mrs Tan took out the Mindstorm set. We
were very enthralled by the set.
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One of the ex-students came to our Robotics lesson.
His name is Eugene. He constructed a car, which
was very different from what we have been doing.
It has very big wheels at the back and very small
wheels in front. It moved at a very high speed and it
was very secured. Wow! It was a very good
example.
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We found many models on robots. They are
awesome. The dancing robots are very
interesting and beautiful.
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The sumobots model look very tough. One of
them is powered by four motors. Wow!
Besides, the robot has four sturdy walls of
bricks.
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There are two missions for the competition.
After looking through the files, our
understanding of the missions increased. Oh no!
They are difficult and tough.
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The robot must be well-secured and we must
have strong grippers to grip six fluffy balls. We
need one motor for the gripper and one for the
wheels and we need the axle gear to turn.
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We are EXCITED!
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Mrs. Tan was unhappy with the way we
programmed our robot. She questioned us the
logic behind the programme but we were unable
to answer. It should turn right but we
programmed it to go straight. Our estimation for
the intensity of light was not very good either.
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We have to work harder! (Nag! Nag! Nag! So
irritating!)
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After the lesson, we have learnt that by using
belts, the vehicle can move up the ram.
However, the belts will slow the robot down
even when the motor is at Power 4. In addition,
we have decided not to use the gripper. We will
build a tall robot to gobble the fluffy balls
instead. Thus, we need to build "walls" to retain
the fluffy balls within the robot.
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Furthermore, after coming up with the
programme, we have to play with the numbers in
order to complete the mission. Gears have to be
properly connected and the light sensor should
be on the side of the robot so as not to block the
sensing.
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We have to be careful when we are using belts
too. As the robot is using a lot of force to go up
the slope, the Lego bricks may fall apart. Thus,
we have to make sure that the bricks are well-
connected.
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We adjourned to the Science Room and were
delighted to see the playing field! It is big and
overwhelming. Mrs Tan, Miss Loh and Eugene
had set up the playing field. Wow! This is
fantastic! We can practise the missions in
school!
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At the same time, we had a meeting and
decided to rename our team to "RoboMed".
"Robo" means robot and "Med" means
medicine.
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All the while, we have been trying to complete the
first mission. Unfortunately, after many tries, we
were unable to do it. Mrs Tan was very
disappointed. As for us, we took things easy.
Failure is never in our minds.
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We had the last Robotics lesson and we have
learnt using the rotational sensor to open the valve
for Mission 2. In addition, we have learnt how to
time the robot to retrieve the bonus ball and to
stick the capsule on the velcro.
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Besides, Mr Tan, our trainer, taught us how to
make a dancing robot. It was fun. We came up
with our own tune and choreographed steps for
the robot.
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After the lesson, we stayed back to learn a web
page design programme—SiteCentral. We learnt
the programme from Mrs Tan. It was an user-
friendly software. We have to set up a website
and we have only two weeks to do this! Oh no!
Can we finish the job in time?
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As we were building the robot and playing with
the software, Mrs Tan found out we have lost our
IR transmitter. She was very angry. We were
reprimanded for not taking care of our things.
(We could vision smoke streaming out of her ears
and fire on her head!)
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She gave a call to the trainer as she thought that
the trainer may have taken it accidentally. True
enough, it was with the trainer. He promised Mrs
Tan that he would bring the transmitter back to us
the next day.
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First thing in the morning, we were told to carry
things for Mrs Tan. The laptops were so heavy!
What a start.
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She made sure that everything was set up and
before she went to assume her duty as a
timekeeper for PSLE Oral. She told us to not to
make noise as we might disturb our seniors.
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When she was gone, we went on to work.
Kendra and Jillian had to programme the robot to
complete Mission 1. Jingwen embarked on the
construction of the robot. Herman grumbled
about typing the journals out and Zhi Hao had his
hands on web page design.
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At about 11 am, Mrs Tan returned and checked
on our progress again. She was shocked that we
could not even complete Mission 1! In addition,
she felt that there was plenty of room for
improvement on Jingwen's construction. She
commented that the robot should be taller so as to
gobble more fluffy balls.
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Jingwen worked on it and the two programmers
worked on their programming as well. The robot
just could not track the line.
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Herman was complaining to Mrs Tan how difficult
his task was. He was supposed to combine all the
five personal journals into one. He talked to us and
looked through our journals. He was flabbergasted!
Eventually, he completed his task.
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As for Zhi Hao, he did a marvellous job! He had
everything he wanted for the web page in mind. He
came up with a piece of excellent work and
completed his task as well!
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Jillian and Kendra left earlier than the boys as they
had other lessons to attend. They went home with a
heavy heart. They did not succeed in completing
Mission 1. Jingwen was left alone to construct and
programme. He was feeling down too.
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The rest of us went home at about 1 pm. We were
be back again on Tuesday.
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We met at 1.30 pm and Mrs Tan was not around!
We had decided to wait for her and entertain
ourselves by playing with the cockatoo the school
just bought.
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Mrs Tan was 5 minutes late! We forgave her as
she bought goodies for us and most importantly,
MORE SWEETS!
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She commanded the programmers to start their
work and they had to complete Mission 1 that day.
Jingwen modified his construction after much
thought. He built a taller and wider robot and had
the light sensor in front.
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Throughout the trials, the robot seemed to be
a bit cranky. We downloaded the filmware
several times. Eventually, we got the robot
moving and it was tracking the black line!
Yeah! Finally, we had achieved something.
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Jingwen modified the construction again and
we tried with the fluffy balls. We only
managed 2 at the beginning. Later, we
shifted the light sensor to the back of the
robot. With thought we could "eat" more
fluffy balls! We confidence, we pressed the
"run" button. Indeed the robot managed to
contain more. However, at a particular turn,
the robot hit the wall before the sensor could
sense the black line. We were hit by this.
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Nevertheless, we made
adjustments to the position of
the light sensor. Eventually, we
managed to gobble all 5 blue
fluffy balls! It was running late
so we had to leave the challenge
of retrieving the bonus ball to
another day.
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As for Zhi Hao's website, Miss Loh was full of
praise for him. It was quite incredible as we only
learnt the construction of the website about a
week ago. Surfing the Internet often definitely
has helped him in designing the web page.
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Miss Loh perfected the web page by going through all
the pages and spotted the errors. She got Zhi Hao to
take note of the changes he had to make. By the time
Miss Loh had finished going through the web pages
with Zhi Hao, it was close to 5 pm already. He would
have to come back another day to make the changes.
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As for Herman, Mrs Tan went through the journal
and commented that he had missed out a lot of details.
He was too good in summarising. Very good. Thus,
he had to expand the journal by adding in more details
and pictures. Arrghhh…… He had tried his best.
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Mrs Tan has loaded the website and realized that
the words and pictures are too big. This is due
to the webpage settings. Thus, Zhi Hao has to
reset the webpage setting and the size of the
pictures and text.
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As for Herman, he has to insert more pictures
into the journal and add in more details. Jingwen
was busy reconstructing the robot to take photos
which will be included in the journal.
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At the end of the day, we were very tired and
went home with the webpage and journal
completed. Yeah!
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