week5

This week we didn't go to Bethlehem because they were attending a performance. As lots of our maps weren't finished, we went down to the hall and taped out maps. We were really close to finishing, but we ran out of time. It didn't help either that I had to go to sick bay because I broke my toe, so Sam had to do it by himself. We were just 6 pieces away from finishing. In this time we were also drawing on the black lines, and we completed that up to where we could.

Hopefully next time we'll get to go to Bethlehem and see our buddies.

Robots

When we arrived at Bethlehem school, we were the group who started with the robots. We were trying to get the robot to follow the black line again, which wasn't hard, but we were using the kids PC laptops, which was quite different to using Macs. At the first couple of attempts to make the robot follow we failed. We asked another pair to see their programming which had success, and we just had something wrong so once we changed it and we were away. Also with Robocup coming up, we had changed the design of the robot, and we had lights on it, so I was on a mission to try and get them working. After a while of fiddling around, I found an odd looking block, so I tried it, and it turned out that it was for the lights, so we got the two lights working, green and red so that looked awesome, considering it was for rescue. After morning tea, we had to switch over on to maps. Our maps are made out of 6x6 A3 sheets of paper, By now we are only half of the way taping all the bits together. Which is a very long way behind all of the other groups. So we taped and odd number of sheets of paper on to our maps and drew some lines. By the time we were finished, our time was up and we had to go. For the map, we have a river, a few trees, a log and a house which, isn't bad. and that was it for the day, back to school!

Third Day

We a had cool day today. Once we arrived at Bethlehem School, as normal, we were split up into our groups, green and yellow. The challenge for today was to programme the robot to follow a black line using light sensors. One group did the maps and one group did the robots. Firstly we did the maps for that session, we created 3d objects for our map eg: trees and houses. We made 3 trees and 1 log, and we've also made a house to sit along the track. We were also not allowed to use the laptop, but let the Year 4's do it, with us guiding them. We had done everything we were supposed to do but for some reason it wasn't following the black line, but when the light sensors went onto white the motors kicked and started running. It took us quite a while to figure out why that was happening, but then we figured it out with help of another team that our robot was programmed to follow light white not black lines. So we changed the light settings, then we were away, with the robot navigating through the two courses ( a loop and an S shape.) By the time we got it working, we had just enough time to get it doing the S shape on video.
On that day, the weather was not that flash, so the unthinkable happens, on the ride home it starts pouring down with rain. By the time everyone got back to school we were all drenched. :(
So now we can't wait to go back and see what each other have built this time and master our teacher challenge.

Second Day

Once we arrived at Bethlehem School, we got divided into our groups like we did last week. One half did planning and the other half was to try to complete our challenge that we got from the teachers. The challenge was to programme the robot to go around two milk bottles and form the figure 8. We had to use the programming software this time, and also show the little kids how it worked. We just about completed our one but the time was up. After that it was morning tea and everyone was having a ball (I played forceback with the little kids which was awesome.) Then it was the hands off robot time. For this we had to draw up our plans for the forrest floor. After a while we all decided on one plan, and we drew it up. Then it was time to move on to the big sheets of paper. For that time we only got 4 sheets of A3 bits of paper and drew a little bit on, but the whole forest floor will be 6x6. So it will be quite big! Almost everything on the the forest floor will be 3D, so the houses, tree's, logs etc. Time flew by and before we knew it we were back at the bike rack getting ready to ride back to school.
That was the coolest time we've had there yet. We all also decided that the yr 4's would build tree's and the yr 8's would build the houses.
All of us can't wait to see each other again and see what each other has built!

First Day

Today we cycled to the kids school. Once we got there we went to room 9 and were partnered up with two year 4's. After we were partnered up we went outside and played a game with all of room 9. This helped us getting to know our partner's and room 9. Then we all sat down and we were put into two groups, Yellow and Green. We were put into the Yellow group and went off to do some hands off robot time and sort out our name. All of us decided to name our group The Retarded Rabbits. Then we all got to know each other while we set up our email account and Blog. Soon after all this we did the hands on robot stuff, which was programing the NXT unit to go around a small milk bottle. We didn't use the programming software for this, just the NXT. We did this first off and we all got a turn and all did it. One of the year 4's put it on loop and made it go around the bottle and back to line 11 times! Not long after all this, it was morning tea and all the big kids took over the play ground and all had an awesome time. Next was the hard bike back to school. :( .

We can't wait till next week and see the kids again!