Technology and Robotics at IS 93 by Fred Wright

New Position

2007-11-25T19:26:00.000-05:00

I have a new position at the same school, is93, that I was the robotics coach and tech coordinator. I am an Assistant Principal now. The subjects I supervise are ESL/ELL, Foreign Language, Social Studies and, of course, technology.

I would like to continue to blog about technology at is93 but I am not sure how to continue.

I would like to find a replacement coach for the school. Now that I am "out of the classroom" I am not coaching. The gear is still here, including a really nice tournament table.

The school is still anticipating delivery of the next round of computers to continue our pilot program of one-to-one computing.

More later.

New Talent for the Robotics Class

2007-06-19T09:29:00.000-04:00

Since it is almost the end of the year, Mr. Daly, the Stock Market talent teacher, and I thought it would be fun to bring his sixth graders over to the Robotics Laboratory and give them a chance to build some robots.

We introduced the students to Legos. Many students already knew about Legos and but were very intrigued by the Robotics part of Legos. I gave an introduction to some key vocabulary words for Legos. These words help us to comunicate. I gave them such words as axel, brick and beam.

Then the students were directed to build a "car that rolls." One thing that is so exciting about students for me is how many ways students will come up with to solve a problem. The problem was simple- Build a car that rolls.

Of course, because these students are New York City students, they quickly came up with solutions that met the critieria of the mini-lesson. The students worked in groups of two. They had to communicate effectively and build it together.

Let's take a look at some of the solutions. Later, I will have this group back. I would really like to have this bunch for next year's team and class. I can tell they will be amazing!

Child Robot From Japan

2007-06-09T14:46:00.000-04:00

A Child Robot was built by Japanese researches at Osaka University. The purpose of the robot is to study child development. I am fascinated by the advancements of robotic developments. What I find even more exciting is how when a project or product is developed, some other use or unplanned use arises from someone else looking at the new invention or twist.

I would to hear about these types of discoveries.

Honda Drops an Electric Car

2007-06-05T18:58:00.000-04:00

The news says that Honda will stop selling the Electric Honda Accord because sales are low.

See guys, even international car companie have difficulty with producing an affordable alternative fuel auto. Maybe the sales are low due to a combination of factors. Isn't the Toyota Prius making sales history?

Why do you think the Prius sales are taking off and the Electric Honda Accord sales slumped to the point that Honda had to cancel sales altogether?

I respect my students' attempts at making an alternative-power source Lego Robot. Don't give up just yet! They are having much difficulty with making a working model but are learning a tremendous amount!

I.S. 93 Students and teachers can win Flash Drive

2007-06-05T10:08:00.000-04:00

The purpose of this contest is to have some fun, learn about services like Box.net and about other office solutions besides Microsoft products. Many of these products are free and that is the rigfht price for many of our studnts and for us as well.

I will consider a whole Google thing for apps, pix, blogs and account later.

You will need to go to OpenOffice.org to get the application that will open the directions!

Box.net is a free storage area for users on the web.
OpenOffice is a free suite of office products that look and work like Word and Powerpoint. I thought a treasure hunt might be a cool way to get people to take a look at some helpful technology.

The directions on how to win the prizes are outlined in the doc on the Box account.

Air Powered Car

2007-06-03T07:38:00.001-04:00

I was pleased to read this article on Air Powered Cars.

Robert and Danny have been trying to use the Lego parts that use air. These parts are the air tanks, hoses, valves and air valve switches. They planned to build some sort of contraption that worked on air. So far they have reported many problems. I have seen some interesting rigs they built with pumps pistons and storage tanks.

I am sure that when they read this article and read about all of the challenges the engineers faced to build a car powered by air that they will not feel alone in their struggles.

I am a teacher watching my students attempt to use an alternative energy source to power a robot. They have been using the normal Lego motors, RCX and traditional looking drive trains for two years. I admire them very much for taking on this challenge to change the power source of a robot. It is timely. It is relavant. They are fearless. They have learned that it isn't so easy to invent a new system and just change to new unproven system.

They have almost given up a few times. I think my middel-school robotics kids are learning first hand what teams of grown-up trained engineers are experiencing. It's hard. It is also exciting. I think the "Big Three" should come to Ridgewood and start funding their edcuation so that Robert and Danny work on these alternative technologies while they are in college and when they finish college.

I think the automotive industry is slow to change because it is easier to just keep making the same old Lego Robot. Just ask Danny and Robert how tempting it is to give up and fall back on "Old Reliable."

Incline Challenge

2007-06-02T15:50:00.000-04:00

Great work Friday! (June 1st, 2007)

Three groups tested their Lego Robots on the ramp in the classroom. I observed all groups running their robots up the ramp. I was pleased that we have more than one group running tests.

I observed the following:

each group expressing their disappointment about how far up the ramp each robot was able to climb.
each group speculating about how to fix the robot to make it climb higher.
very few written observations being entered by the teams.

The Science comes from writing down what you are attempting. Describe the results. Describe a plan of action to redesign the robot. Run it again. Log the new observations, such as "It went 5 cnetimeters farther up the ramp. We change the tires by doubling up the tires on each side of the axle."

Tell your journal why you think an attempt or a redign was successful or not. This reveals your learning.

I would like a few comments concerning the ramp, drive trains, worm gears, traction, slipping and anything else that goes on when a robot is climbing!

Visitors Welcome!

2007-06-01T07:59:00.000-04:00

Many visitors pass through this site.

Please say hello!

June 9th is Approaching Quickly

2007-05-20T09:44:00.000-04:00

Lego Robotics Class Activities

Focus: Build and Program a robot to complete one of the missions of the June 9th Queen's Tournament.

Some groups are reporting that:

"Our group is building a robot to solve the Mountain Climber mission."
"My group is building a robot to solve the ball game."
"Our group is attempting to build a robot with a claw to solve the Ballgame mission."

Here is a Checklist for a Completed Robot:

Are you using the RCX or NXT?
Components: Chassis, Claw/Plow/Arm, Gear Train, other significant features?
Is the chassis completed? Is the Arm or Plow completed? Is the Gear Train appropriate for the mission and is it completed?

What is the team's idea?
Is the building completed?

Is there a plan for the programming?

Has any testing taken place? And if so, how has the design or programming changed?

Did the changes improve the performance of the robot or reduce the effectiveness of the robot?

Teams will be asked to run practice missions on the competition table next Friday. Your team will talk about the mission they chose before running a practice mission. After the mission has been run, students will discuss the success of the practice session.

Lunch-time periods are open for extra building and programming time. Check 301 for availability.

Writing Awards

2007-05-16T18:27:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to the students of class 819 who went to Albany. They went there to receive the awards they won for writing they submitted to a contest.

God job!

Better!

2007-04-17T19:43:00.000-04:00

I read all of the comments about the missions you all plan to solve.

I would like you to submit sketches or photographs of your prototypes so we can begin to make commentary on the form and function of each group's design.

Do you have programs in mind yet? Maybe groups should begin to plan for prgramming while they build robots. I have a feeling the programming will become very important for these missions especially for the craertive challenges!

2007-04-13T09:42:00.000-04:00

Click here to see the challenges for the next event.Region 4 Lego Site

Please choose an event to solve during class. Add a comment to let me know what you are planning. In other words, tell me how you will design and program a robot to solve one challenge.

Race Day!

2007-03-26T07:09:00.000-04:00

How do we run a race with slowbots?

You have been so successful at designing turtlebots that a regular ready-set-go! type of race is not practical. So, we will think out of the box to come up with new kind of race- a theoretical race.

You will race by figuring out your robot's average speed and comparing that to the other robots to see who wins the race. We will use 10 minutes as the length of the race. The robot that moves the shortest distance would therefore win the slowbot race!

How do we figure out who goes the shortest distance?

The motor runs at 375 RPM. (Revolutions Per Minute, 375rev/1min)
Let's assume the motor runs at 90% capacity due to drag from the weight of the robot.
My gear ratio is 13824:1.

So the 375RPM's is reduced by 10% which equals 337.5 RPM.

If you think of a wheel on a desktop, when the wheel goes through one full revolution, it has moved along the desk the same distance as its circumference (pi * OD or 3.14 times the outside diameter). Then, you just need to convert rpm to miles per hour taking care to watch your units.

OD is a short form of saying 'outside diameter'. For a tire, it's the distance across the tire from one edge to the other edge (not the hole in the center where the tire is mounted on the rim). Let's say you had a tire/wheel with a 24" OD. One revolution of the tire would mean that the tire rolls along the pavement 24" * pi or about 75.4 inches (if you marked a spot on the tire and put that on the ground and rolled the tire one full revolution so that spot would be on the ground again, the distance between the two points would be 75.4 inches). Let's then say the tire is turning at 100 rpm. Therefore, the distance the tire is covering is 7,540 inches per minute (75.4 inches per revolution * 100 revolutions per minute). Finally, you change that into what units you want.

So my tire is 1.5 inches diameter, now multiply that by 3.14 which is 4.71 inches. The RPM is 337.5 x 1/13824 = .0244 rpm's because the motor output RPM is changed by the gear reduction to .0244 RPM's. Now I multiply rpm by distance by time which is .0244 x 4.71inches x 10 minutes = 1.15 inches . Got it? What is the distance for your robot?

Crazy Gear Ratios

2007-03-22T07:14:00.000-04:00

Students have been so successful at designing slow robots that we may need a few weeks just to get some the Slowbots to move an inch!

Work groups have until the end of the week to finalize their designs before our "race."

One of the rules of the race is that each member of the group has to be prepared not only to name the gear ratio of the gear train of the group but to expalin how the final numbers of the ratio was obtained. For example, if the gear train on my Slowbot had a gear train with a combination of gears reducing from eight-tooth gears to forty-tooth gears twicw, then the gear ratio would be 25:1. This is because the first ratio was 8:40 reduced 5:1. This happens twice in my example therefore 5:1 times 5:1 would give the fianl 25:1. Got it?

Slowness Turtle-Bots

2007-03-08T09:48:00.000-05:00

Please post your description of your slowbot. For example:

My slowbot starts with a motor connected to a chain of three worm gears connected on the last axle to a pulley that connects to the drive axle. It is covered by a box and moves about one centimeter every five minutes.

Snailbot Slowbot Turtlebot?

2007-02-10T12:30:00.000-05:00

This unit will focus our designing skills on creating the slowest robot of all. I am not sure what we should call it.

The requirements are written in the room. Please use the commenting feature to write in one requirement at a time.

Also, I would like each group to check in and write the name of your new robot.

First Place Robot Design

2007-01-29T20:40:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to the I.S. 93 Eagles! The team won the 1st place in the category of "Robot Design" in the New York City First Lego League Nanquest Competition.

This is the category of the competition where two members of the team deliver an oral presentation about the technical aspects, including design and programming, to a small panel of judges. The judges ask pointed questions to determine the extent of knowledge and understanding of robotic principals and specifics of their design.

The Eagles understand!

I will post pictures soon. I am very proud of the teamwork that went into Sunday's competition. By the way, the Eagles placed 8th and 20th overall in points earned on the competition table.

Permission Slip for FLL Nanoquest, 01/28/07

2007-01-27T08:37:00.000-05:00

Please download, print and sign the permission slip. Bring it with you to the tournament Sunday. I will be there at 8:00am. You may want to come then to adjust your program for the light in the gym.

Parking Rules for the FLL Nanoquest at Riverside Park

2007-01-27T08:19:00.000-05:00

The directions below will get you to the park entrance at Riverside Drive and West 145th Street.

CARS and VANS: DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CAR UNATTENDED AT THE CIRCLE – IT WILL BE TICKETED.

Drive into the park, past the information booth at the 145th St. entrance, over the bridge and to the circle and a look for a Park Ranger giving out parking permits and maps to the lot located on the lower level, below the park.
When you get your parking permit from the ranger on the park level,Then follow the map to the parking lot. It is a long walk back upstairs from the lot to the gym. To get to the lot, you'll have to go back out on to the streets, follow the directions carefully - we do mean carefully –they’re not that easy to follow.
Park your car, take the elevator or the six flights stairs and walk back up to the gym.

You need to get the permit to park before you park. It is a very long route to get back to the parking lot. The Gym is built over the parking lot and you have to drive a few miles to back underneath it so please get the permit first!

Use the previous post to get directions to the park.

Next Week is the Competition

2007-01-21T20:15:00.000-05:00

One week from today is the First Lego League Competition at Riverbank St Park in Manhattan.

We will meet Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Thursday is an extra practice. We will work until 5:30 Wed and Thur. and till 6:00pm on Friday.

Our future engineers are busy solving missions and practicing their verbal reports about their robots and Robolab code.

LOCATION:

Gymnasium
Riverbank State Park
679 Riverside Dr. (at 145th Street)
New York, NY 10031

The entrance to the park is on Riverside Drive at West 145th Street in Manhattan. Go down near the end of this e-mail for travel directions and VERY important instructions about PARKING.

For directions, go to: Park directions.

SNOW CANCELLATION:

If the weather causes Riverbank State Park to close, we will cancel the tournaments. You may call 718-260-3383, 973-596-3234, or 973-596-3572 for a recorded message regarding our status.

THE SCHEDULE:

8:00am - 9:00am Registration, Robot Inspection
9:30am - 10:00am Opening Ceremonies
10:00am - 11:00am Competition Round I *
11:00pm – 12:00pm Competition Round II *
12:00pm-1:00pm Lunch
1:00pm - 2:00pm Competition Round III *
2:30pm - 3:00pm Award Ceremony

8-9am, 10:00am - 2:00pm - Research Presentations (see below)
8-9am, 10:00am – 2:00pm – Technical Presentation (see below)

NanoQuest Work

2007-01-14T16:03:00.000-05:00

The team has been refining segmented missions. Segementing is when students break down a mission to smaller steps. They solve the programming issues for each part-- the segment and then put the segments together to make a complete program that solves the mission.

Then, many times they can put two missions together under one slot in the RCX.

Next Wave of Robots

2006-11-16T16:15:00.000-05:00

Robert, Danny and Eugene have built robots that will perform well as FLL robots. Wednesday was really productive after school. All three students have adapted gear trains, imbedded rotation sensors and have anchored decent claws or the third motor. They have steering under control and now can solve missions. Great job!

Abanoub, our newest and youngest team member is showing great potential. He has built a "half-track" robot that has rack and pinion steering with tank treads for power. It's an interesting robot. It reminds me of the picture I posted here. The other Robert has been helping Abanoub out with Robolab essentials and teaching him about "robust design" concepts. He may well be our new star!

Practice Tournament

2006-11-07T09:16:00.000-05:00

December 16th is the date for the Queen's Region 4 Robotics Practicve Tournament

That is a Saturday, please set that date aside. We need everyone to participate!

Progress and Activities

2006-11-03T07:54:00.000-05:00

We are making progress in class. We are finishing the assembly of the FLL Nano Quest missions.

Not completely sure what you should be doing in class?

These are the four activities that you should be engaged in:

Assembling a mission.
Building or rebuilding a robot.
Programming or re-programming a robot in Robolab.
Making entries into your Science Journals or Robotics blog.

Please let me find you engaged in these activities during class time. Of course, everyone helps clean up at the end after we summarize our work period.

Work Group Names

2006-10-05T20:09:00.000-04:00

I would like each work group to please post a comment about what their new names are and how you came up the names. Already, the newly named "Geodesiks" told me that while researching, they found this guy Buckminster Fuller and asked if I had ever heard of him. I replied," Why, Yes I have. He was a famous thinker who designed, among other things, a structure called the geodesic Dome, which looks like a soccer-ball house. They said, "That's it!" With a little tweaking they had a name that they came up from their own research. and were able to talk about how he was and what he did.

It just does not get any better than that as a teacher.

This week, if you finished building a working mission to solve- start solving it! That means, if the mission structure your group was assembling is functioning properly, start designing and building a robot that is able to perform actions to solve the mission. Use your Science Journal entries to guide your building-- you already have sketches and notes about how you think you will be able to solve the mission.

Be the 5th person to tell me the name of the Platonic Solid in the right hand corner for a surprise.

Somethings to read about...

2006-09-28T14:25:00.000-04:00

I would like you to read about a few programs:

Poly Tech Summer Programs

and the BotBall organization.

This Week. 9/25/06

2006-09-23T13:03:00.000-04:00

Works groups for 8TA Lego Robotics at I.S.93 started the assembly of the FLL Nano Quest Challenge missions last week. The groups also did their homework which was to come up new work group names. Since the theme is a molecular one this year I had hoped to get some good names. One group came with the "Geodeziks" because they found some research on Buckminster Fuller and wanted to pay homage to his body of work. What a great name for a work group! They get it that that "geodesic" concerns distances while comparing curves and straightline measurements. I love to hear and see the creativity of my students.

This week we will continue to assemble the missions. Obviously we need the missions to be on the mat instead of in pieces in a bag but... Where is the learning? What I am supposed to learn by following printed directions?

The answer is:

Team building and improving the skill of working in a group are the two concepts I am concerned with for one.
I also want individuals to pay attention to how the missions were engineered. I have begun to appreciate the cleverness of the design of the missions, not just the idea of that mission. In other words, look at how the pieces of the mission are constructed. we can so much about design and engineering by how other people solve problems and by how they design.
Then I want the individuals to discuss and record design and construction techniques within the work group. " Look how the connectors are hidden by the technics beams ." "Look how the pieces are combined to make a different piece."

NanoQuest Challenges IS 93

2006-09-20T11:25:00.000-04:00

We are beginning our Lego Robotics program for 2006-2007.

1. We are printing the instructions for assembling the missions.
2. We have each work group focusing on one mission.They will assemble the mission and then describe it to the other groups.
3. Planning our teams. We may field a RCX, NXT,and VEX team this year.

Stay tuned!

We're Back! Lego Robotics at IS 93.

2006-09-09T15:39:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the new school year. Last year at IS 93 here in Queens was a great year. We will still have the Lego Robotics club through Beacon, GRYC. We also have an eighth grade class in Robotics. Many major subject teachers "loop" at 93 which means teachers follow their students up in through the grades. I have done the same thing with last year's seventh grade- now that they are in the eighth grade, I have them again. We lost a few students and gained some sharp students.

We will continue our work with the RCX. Two NXT kits are on the way and we'll see what we can do with a VEX kit we got. I would like to enter a VEX competition.

We are pursuing a continued relationship with PloyTech this year. We want our program to grow and we will explore more ways to do that. Every time we do, we make tremendous progress.

Next week, we will go to Manhattan to view the Isler brother's documentary television pilot at the 2006 New York Television Festival. View the trailer. They followed and filmed three robitcs programs and have produced a 22 minute piolt that is competing in the festival contest. One of the teams they filmed was the 93 Eagles. Take some time to explore the Gloaming Pictures website.

Interesting Rule Change fo FLL

2006-08-07T14:13:00.000-04:00

Check out changes for the latest in rule changes. The new NXT kits give advantages so to equalize the RCX and the NXT they added rotation sensor allowances.

I can think of some great uses for extra rotation sensors! How about you?

Real World Robotics in the News

2006-07-22T19:03:00.000-04:00

I thought this story described a very clever invention. I like reading about the applications of robotics in areas where we might not normally think of.

Be sure to click on the photo link in the story.

Anna Konda

Summer Robotics Never Stops!

2006-07-15T21:14:00.000-04:00

My buddies Reed and Ethan came to the beach today and found that my Duplo set was not enough to keep their interest- not when the real deal is here. Robotics attracts very young students who are very capable of understanding robotic concepts.

Click on Reed's picture for a little movie.

Long Break

2006-07-11T12:06:00.000-04:00

I hope I was not away too long.

I.S. 93 won the Region 4 Robotics Pentahlon at Aviation HS in June.
I will try to post pictures later.

Today is the first of two days of Robotics workshops at I.S. 93.

Region 4 Spring Robotics Pentathlon and Aviation High School Open House

2006-05-31T22:23:00.000-04:00

Beacon is providing bus transportation to Aviation HS. We leave at 7:30am. Bring a lunch.

Click here for permission slip for Saturday. All participants must have a signed permission slip to attend.

We have had a slow start developing really good solutions for these events but the team always seems to pull through.
The best event for I.S. 93, as always, is our technology presenation skills. Any member of our team could present and do well because so many team members know so much about the robotic concepts such as gear trains and robust construction.

Gears Again.

2006-05-21T10:06:00.000-04:00

Gear trains are essential for designing and constructing robots to perform how builders intend for the robot perform. We come back to this problem repeatedly. Mastering the construction of gear trains comes with lots of practice.

I re-discovered a nice website to help us with this. It is a Rice University site. I like to use these sites because it shows how the concepts of engineering Lego Robotics is not an exclusively middle school or high school problem-- colleges and universities study these problems and provide rich resources for us to use.

See what you think. I believe that you will benefit by reviewing the information on those pages.

Student Blogs Highlight Student Learning

2006-05-17T20:15:00.000-04:00

Check the Student blogs and websites on the right. These are my lego robotic students who are begining to blog which means they are publishing what they learn.

I had hoped they would just do it. Some did. Some did not. As this is new ground for me, I am learning that I have to find a way to make what I want my students to do "a must."

Well, now "they must."

Agenda:
Students will begin to migrate their Lego Robotics Journals to on-line publishing.

One way is to write in "Word" and then copy and paste the text to a blog entry. I find it difficult at first, to write the content, and to figure out how to make the blog entries work. Wilson has chosen to use a different page maker.

Advanced features of blogs or other on-line publishing:

Embed links and references into the blogs to add definitions and other sources to back up what is being reported or said.
Add pictures and photos of your own robots from class instead of copying pictures from the web to illustrate your entries.
Add extra sidebar topics by messing around with the html on the template.

Collaboration:

Go to the other students' journals and post comments on what they have reported about their learning. This may seem awkward or forced at first until we learn how to communicate by blogging and publishing on-line.

More Claws, More Journaling

2006-05-13T09:25:00.000-04:00

Agenda for the week:
More Claws, More Journaling

Work Groups will continue to troubleshoot their robots. This means the robot must be pretty quick and needs to have a motorized claw that grasps a soda can. These activities always sound simple and are very easy to do poorly.

Here are some observations from last week:

1.) The first attempts of attaching the claws to the robots looked clumsy and did not work very well. That is what I expected.

2.) More students were adding better quality notes to their journals. That is what I had I hoped for.

3.) Many of the robots got very heavy. That was not as predictable but I was not surprised.

4.) The gear trains were designed by using shortcuts. I thought I would see more gear trains designed better because we spent so much time on the dragsters and learning gear trains. I thought groups would use that information to their advantage when trying to design a robot for this task. You earned that knowledge from hard work. This surprised me.

5.) There was a lot of re-designing going on. I saw many more students willing to tear apart what they were building to fix a problem. That is what you should be doing.

Groups should be ready to run their robot and grasp a can by the end of the week.
I would like to see each student start a blog journal so that you can write and publish your work to the web.

Attaching the Claw

2006-05-07T11:40:00.000-04:00

This week the activity will be attaching the claw.
In the past few weeks, work groups have been building a grasping claw. Recently, other members of the work groups have been building a speedy robot.

What is next? Of course! The claws need to be attached to the robots.

Make the grasping claws an integral part of the robots. I am suggesting that groups may need to make some slight adjustments to the chassis of the claw or the robot to make a good strong fit. Plus, does it look good? Here are the criteria in Rubric form.

Let me add another challenge to this activity. Do you need sensors to tell the robot that it has touched a cylinder or that the arms of the claw are touching? If so, now is the time to integrate the sensors into the design. Remember our first concept of robot construction? Robust Design. Incorporate that concept now.

If you are successful, you will have a quick, controllable robot that can grasp objects and deliver them to another location.

I am ecouraging students to post comments. Predict what your problems might be for this activity. How does your group plan to intergrate the sensors? How do you feel about tearing apart what you have built AGAIN?

Science Journals, Scientific Inquiry in Middle Schools

2006-04-24T14:41:00.000-04:00

I took a look at all of the Lego Robotics Journals last week. These are really science journals that you keep. Some of the journals were fascinating to read. Others were unreadable because there was nothing there to read.
This made me think it was time to discuss the journals again so that students can increase their learning and performance. In this world, "...if it is not written down or recorded somehow-- it did not happen." Anonymous

Today, we reviewed some features of Science Journals which included but was not limited to, notes, drawings, diagrams, maps, thoughts, qusetions, observations, procedures, analysis, predictions, and summaries.

I hope that your journal entries improve. It is hard for some students to get started. I will help. Just say, "Give me hand," or "help," and I will.

My first question to you will be, " What are you doing?" Then, "Why?" and so forth. Just write a quick sentence for your answer. Pretty soon you can train yourself to ask those questions inside your head and then answer them with writing in your journal.

Check out this rubric I made for your journals.

Back From Spring Break- Grasping Claws

2006-04-21T17:41:00.000-04:00

Hi Guys!

We are back to the grind on Monday. Our latest objective in our Lego Robotics Talent Class is to build a simple grasping claw. Claws are needed to do work. A robot that has the ability to grasp objects makes it a versatile robot and will have the ability to score points in many competitions.

Before the break, we were building the claw on a separate chassis. That means we were not using an RCX yet. Yes, eventually we will attach the claw, but for now, each work group is busy constructing the claws as a unique item.

Claw Lesson from MIT

Colleges use robotics to teach engineering. Take a look...

I showed you two examples of grasping claws, one was an expanding scissor-like claw and the other was a pivoting claw.

We found that we need to follow a few principles to build a successful claw:
1.) A claw needs a structure-- like a rectangular frame. By the end of the week we were calling it a "chassis." That helped students to get the idea across that the claw needs to be supported just as gear trains, axles and wheels do.

2.) "Trial and Error" seems to be a good way to build a claw. Drawing and planning are always appreciated but nothing beats building, testing and re-building.

Think of heavy machinery. Can you think of any machines or devices that have grasping claws? Try drawing that object.

One last thought. Building this claw is very rich activity to learn from. I want to see diagrams and drawings in your Robotics Journals. I want to see descriptions of your processes. I want to read what you think. I want to read how you solved problems with your claw.

Good Work Everyone. DragBots

2006-03-29T20:00:00.000-05:00

c

Here is a review of what the workgroups have done:
Groups made a "first effort" at making a fast robot. They recorded data and described the design of the drive train.
Groups then gradually edited programs to get the dragsters to "start on brighter," and to "record and display time", while "stopping on dark."

These designs were then rebuilt to try to make the 'bot go faster. Groups used real science to test the new designs. Data was recorded from time trials again to compare to the first set of data. Then analysis was done to determine if more speed was attainable.

I am very pleased with all of the groups results!! I am looking forward to next week to hear you explain what you accomplished.
Time Trials
Three-way Drag Race
More Drag Racing Dragbots

Queens Spring Challenges Revealed

2006-03-22T06:52:00.000-05:00

Click here to see the Challenges.

The Region 4 Spring Pentathalon Challenge is upon us! Pentathalon means competing in five events. Teams will do their best to master each event to showcase and develop their engineering and programming skills.

The teacher in me really loves the mystery challenge because no one knows what it is until the day of the event. It causes teams' heart rates to increase and the energy levels to go off the charts.

I am looking forward to seeing what my students will come up with--I know they will surprise and impress with their creativity, engineering skills and programming finesse.

Excellent Progress

2006-03-02T19:55:00.000-05:00

Task: Build a robot that goes faster than everyone else's. Distance: ten feet.
Activity: Use Robolab technology to devise a method to measure the velocity of your RobotDragster.
Next: Use the data from your measurements to determine if adjustments are making your robot faster.

I am very pleased with student reactions to this new activity. We discussed how measuring velocity can be done internally or externally. I heard some clever ideas from groups about how they planned to accomplish this task.

I would like to see simple drawings of the code. I would like to see drawings of the external plans.

Some groups reported that using touch sensors to hit a whisker or gate at the end of the 10' could be a solution to stop a timer. Another group may use two sensors linked to a separate RCX to be a starting sensor, the other to be used as an finish line sensor. One group is using Robolab code to build an internal speedometer. All of these are excellent ideas.

Make it Faster, External or Internal Measurement

2006-02-21T20:51:00.000-05:00

The next task is to make a robot faster than everybody else's.

Sounds simple. It is not.

I really love watching the results of our workgroups. I always learn from your efforts. What I have seen all of you make is exactly what any coach would expect. That is not a bad thing. I see it as the first thing. You all made dragsters that you say go fast.

What I would like you to consider is this: How do you know the robot "goes fast?" Prove it to yourselves then prove it to me.

The fastest team will not settle for the first design built. The fastest team will figure out a way to measure the speed of the robot. Then they will analyze all of the data at hand like the gears, the design and the speed trials.

Then a new robot will be built. It will be slower or faster. If you can tell how much faster or slower exactly and maybe why, then I know you learned something.

I want you to have an internal desire to use scientific methods to make the fastest robot. Here is an example of what I mean:

Let's look at a cars velocity. How is a car's velocity measured? The speedometer? How about the policeman's radar gun? A race fan's stopwatch? Everyone in class is measuring their robot's speed usinng their watches. Some have actually measured more than one trial! There is much error when using a watch.

Is there another method to measure a robots speed? Does Robolab offer any oppurtunities to count or measure speed, time or distance which are all factors of velocity? Can you build a "radar gun" and measure the robot's speed externally?

I can think of many different ways to measure the speed both externally and internally using Legos, the RCX, and Robolab. I want you to come up with an idea to measure the speed and make it happen. Then you should have a dependable way to create the data necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of your "fastbot."

And then?

2006-01-31T04:32:00.000-05:00

This week and probably the rest of February, we will focus on two things:

A. Making sure everyone in the Robotics class can build a robot and program it to move and do a mission.
Some students are not contributing much effort to their work group. If you need something from me, ask. Other students, here and there, are telling me confidentially that a certain member is not helping too much and they feel like they have to do all of the work. This does not surprise me because I notice it myself. I have been doing "teacher things" to try and motivate everyone. I am very pleased that students feel comfortable approaching me about these types of matters. Not one person made personal remarks. Everything spoken about was about the work.

B. Science Fair Projects. We will devote as much time in class as possible to science Fair projects.
More on this later. For now, leave it at this. You have your regular Science class and the help from your Science teacher. You have Robotics three more times a week. With all of the extra computer time and materials at your fingertips in my room, maybe the name should be changed to Science Un-Fair.

Your project may be looked at in two ways. One part is the idea and the other part is how you present the idea. You know, "What are saying?" and "How are you saying it?" We have all sorts of presentation materials for you to use. And, I have many probes, such as temperature, pH, sound and pressure. I also have every possible electrical probe that is coupled with the RCX brick to record data. Don't forget I have cameras and video cameras if needed also.

You have time to do an in-depth inquiry and to prepare your presentation. I think it would be reasonable to expect the top ten places in the fair to be won by robotics students. Remember, you can not build a kit for your project.

Q. What is the hardest part about these types of activities for most students?

A. THE TOPIC! (Our next class discussion!)

Links to look into:

http://www.cdli.ca/sciencefairs/intermed.html
http://mathforum.org/teachers/mathproject.html
http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/projectguide/
http://www.chipublib.org/008subject/009scitech/scifideas.html

IS 93/Carnota Eagles Win Third in Design!

2006-01-30T10:55:00.000-05:00

Today, I am letting the photographs do most of the talking. I am too exhausted from such a long weekend and the the stress from competing to write too much.

I will say I am proud to be the coach of such excellent students. Watching them compete with poise and dignity was quite an experience for me. I read their faces all day long and saw the many emotional ups and downs from the effects of competing and trying so hard.

We also had so many parents, friends and family present. "Thank you" to them for supporting us.

Working a Little Too Good!

2006-01-27T20:14:00.000-05:00

The Skype exchange went off as planned today: Carnota and IS 93 communicated with a chat while both schools had video cameras running.

Here's the twist. Mr. Wright was not there to run it! I was in a meeting at 65 Court Street.

Mr. Daly, the other IS 93 Coach, and Xose Calvo, Principal and English Teacher in Carnota, set it up, got it running and successfully exchanged information. They even managed to pull off a virtual mission challenge. Students were actually the ones over here who set up the laptops, webcam and logged in to get it all going. Much credit goes to Eugene who acted as the "Operator." Skype likes to hang up on you! He was the troubleshooter.

Here's the second twist. Mr Wright, that's me, was sitting at table with executives of an international corporation and ten employees of the NYCDOE when my laptop starting talking in Spanish and Gallego!! I could not turn it down or off! Talk about the annoying cell-phone guy! I had to leave the room even though it was a huge disruption to the meeting. You know, everyone there wanted to see the video and to see who was having all that fun running robots and sharing all of that excitement talking to other students in another country.

I was very proud that my team could perform at this level without me.

Stay tuned for the FLL tournament this weekend.

Coaches pitch in, to tailor make the uniforms!

2006-01-25T20:31:00.000-05:00

John Daly, Stock Market Teacher, and fellow Lego coach, helps to get the uniforms ready for the dress-rehearsal smack-down skype-out scheduled for this Friday.

Carnota Progress

2006-01-22T07:17:00.000-05:00

http://xosecalvo.blogspot.com/
I am very pleased with how things are going with our buddies in Carnota, Spain. Everytime I go to Xose's Corner there are new pictures showing his half of our team building robots and solving missions very quickly. On our side of the Atlantic, my half of the team some students are busy refining their techniques for the missions while others are finishing up the research project and deciding how to present their efforts.

Sunday, January 29, 2006, is our tournament. We will be ready to give our best efforts.

I can tell you that getting everything together, planning, planning, packing, traveling, and training in Carnota has made me and my students raise our own standards. Once we realized many more people out of our own classroom would be scrutinizing every little thing we were doing, we really wanted to do everything right. That made us prepare and execute with a little more pep in our step. My students worked very hard to get their robots as good as they could get them and the research questions were drawn up carefully as well. There is enthusiasm and sincerity in every ounce of my team's efforts.

Also, without Mr. John Daly holding down the US side of the team while I was gone, we would not be enjoying this project at all. He has endured the "Mr. Wright's Crash Course Tecnique" of learning. We never have enough time and he has taken on more and more with the team.

Real learning is taking place in a real world situation- I could not be happier with the results.

A Few Pictures From Spain

2006-01-18T13:20:00.001-05:00

We spent many hours training our new teammates in Carnota last weekend.
I will be sharing pictures and some items of interest as I go.

This is me, Fred Wright, and Steve Shapinsky, Region 4, NYCBOE, Robotics Staff Developer, using Skype to have a video conference with our classmates and teachers back at IS 93 in NY from Spain.

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This is the lab in Carnota that we worked in. The view on the wall is from the room 301 where Mr. John Daly was webcasting the IS 93 students running missions on the challenge mat while our new teammates in Spain were watching and asking questions.

Sabado in Carnota

2006-01-14T11:54:00.000-05:00

Bienvenidos\Welcome

Yesterday was somethng else. I have not posted in a little while because we were very busy.

Summary:
Norm Scot, Steve Shapinsky and Fred Wright went to Spain to set up a relationship with a school there in a town called Carnota. We brought Lego Robotics kits and computers and many other technology devices and cables.

After meeting with the Principal and Technology teacher, we began training them in Lego Robotics. In order to share the experience, we used Skype.com to communicate with many students and teachers, principals and regional staff in New York City. Webcams and chats were used.

The technology did not work completely at first but eventually we got the video and audio to work along with the chat. That enabled both sides to see and hear what the other side was doing.

What was each side doing?

The New York side was demonstrating thier robots in action attemtping to score points on the field. The Carnota side was watching them. Other students on both sides were exchanging information about the Reasearch Project. IS 93 asking questions about ther effects of the Prestige oil spill. Carnota was blogging and skype-chatting back the answers to the questions.

Today, students in Carnota gave up a beautiful Saturday to learn Robotics with us. These girls are quick learners!

Steve Shapinsky teaching the Prinicpal and the Technology teacher how to do advanced Robolab so they can teach their half of opur team.

Heathrow

2006-01-12T05:43:00.003-05:00

Check back for more updates from Europe. Norm, Dan, Steve and Fred are waiting for a connecting flight to Spain. Mucho Latte!

We will contact Xose, the principal of the school in Carnota as soon as we unpack.

It's 11:00am here and 5:00am NY time.
See you later.

Back in GEAR!

2005-12-30T09:52:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year

January is crunch time! All of my students have very important ELA exams on the seventeenth. You also have our biggest event of the year- the First Lego League Ocean Oddyssey Challenge.

You will probably experience some pressure during January. We all feel pressure. We have to learn how to handle pressure and anxiety in life. Stress is another name for this stuff. Some people like pressure. It makes them perform better. They like deadlines. It helps to motivate them.

Some people do not like pressure. Stress makes them feel overwhelmed. That makes them feel like doing nothing. They work better without all of the anxiety that deadlines and test dates bring. Everyone is different. But as we get older and get more education and more resonsibility, we will get more stress, more pressure and experience more anxiety.

What can we do about it? Everyone will have to develop their own way of dealing with stress and deadlines. Personally, when I was younger I had really bad techniques for dealing with pressure. I would do nothing and procrastinate until the last minute. That created more stress and the work I produced was not as good as it could have been if I had done a little bit at a time.

Now I plan better.
I write out lists and make smaller chunks of things to do.
I also take breaks and exercise.
I try to get enough sleep and rest.
I try to eat healthy food.
And lastly:
BALANCE.
I have to balance what my priorities are.

The balance idea is hard. For my students, balance means you can't drop everything else except the ELA test prep. You still have other subjects and other things gong on in your lives that you can not neglect. Yet, there are some important things coming up that you have give a little more effort to. Try to come up with some way of balancing what you have to do.

Maybe you want to comment about everything you have to do in January. I would like to hear from all of my students.

Wednesday Wipeout Results

2005-12-21T16:52:00.000-05:00

Last week was so much fun and we all learned so much from the added stress of the timer.

So, we have decided to have a weekly timed competition with a new name every week. Last week was the "Smack Down." This week was the Wednesday Wipeout."

Today's results:

Galileo run by Daniel 190 pts
Coaches run by Mr. Daly 119 pts
Cassini run by Gary 86 pts

The earlier part of the session was a riot. We all tuned up our Skype accounts to practice for communicating with our teammates in Spain. So we sat around a big table and Skyped each other. We had conference calls and conference chats going simultaneously- great fun! I posted a challenge "Send a picture file of a Lego gear to everyone in the chat." Skype functions allow file transferring, so first everyone had to search in Google images, then save to the My Pictures folder, and finally Send File. What a total panic! We all got it going but it was chaos because a window pops up for every file sent to each chat member and a window for every file received from every other chat member --so there was a whole bunch of windows going on! Uploading, downloading--crazy! Now we all know how to create conference calls, send files, chat and exchange information. I love this job.

Queens Lego Robotics Competition

2005-12-19T20:25:00.000-05:00

What a day! The First Lego League held the Borough of Queens Lego Robotics Competition Saturday, December 17th, 2005. Dozens of schools representing many neighborhoods of Queens showed up early carrying kits, bags of snacks, laptops, spare parts and robots.

Six dedicated members of the I.S.93 team showed with 3 parental units in tow! That was great because parents' are part of our team. My team had "the nerves." Gary and Robert took a bit too long to upgrade to fresh batteries and learned first hand about losing firmware in the RCX. That means they had to reload firmware, which should only take 4 minutes. The laptops display screen malfunctioned so another laptop had to be used. That took many minutes to reboot over and over. The nerves grew worse! Then the firmware gets re-loaded. Done. Next we used a flash drive to get the RCX's original code off the malfunctioning laptop. Since opening a .vi file from Robolab directly from clicking on the file is not an option, the files had to be copied deep into the program vault file, which was very time consuming. Next they read an error message that said we could not load files from a newer version of Robolab into a RCX with older firmware! That meant we loaded the wrong version of the firmware from an un-upgraded computer. Luckily we had a third laptop with compatible firmware and their files with their missions were tediously loaded into the brick again. Gary and Robert were very disappointed by all of that frustrating troubleshooting but the fact is they got it done and competed and did their best to accomplish missions. They even managed to score more points than some of the other schools.

Way to go! That kind of knowledge can not be taught- it's only to be gained by experienced.

Next, Gabby and Daniel did a great job with running their 'bot's missions. The spectators and Gabby's mom cheered when they brought the container to the base during the round. I was very proud of their performances because they showed concentration, a great attitude and scored lots and lots of points! They communicated their strategies over and over to ensure the predictable performance of the robot. The teamwork they showed was noticed by many observers.

The success of their robot was due to several factors which we focus on everyday during Lego Roboitcs at I.S. 93: Compact Robust Design, Flexibility in Design and Programming, Teamwork, Adaptablility, and On-The-Fly Problem Solving. All of these concepts were combined to produce a successful and FUN day of competing.

I was very proud of Daniel and Gabby. They showed enthusiasm and clever planning!

Lastly, Robert and Eugene scored the most points of any school's rounds at the tournament. That earned the I.S. 93 team first place in the competition. Their second round yielded the highest points which was the result of really excellent aiming and concise planning that was enhanced by constant strategizing, feedback and communication.

It is difficult to describe how I feel as a coach during these competitions. But the whole robotics experience makes me very proud. Region 4, NYCBOE supplied the training and resources. Steve Shapinsky and Norm Scott set up the tournament and was staffed by scores of adult volunteers and Long Island City HIgh School student volunteers. Our parents came and supported our students. My kids had every challenge and problem a poor robot could throw at them. They competed with poise and grace. We ate together, cheered together and had intense nervous stomachs together. I am blessed to be involved with such a program and I want to thank every single person there who competed, showed up, volunteered, cleaned up, referreed, mentored or who had anything else to do with the program.

A special thanks to Terry Bader for having the foresight to seek the funds and deliver a comprehensive robotics program region wide.

Cassini WorkGroup Mastering Design

2005-12-14T14:26:00.000-05:00

Gary and Eric of the Cassini WorkGroup are demonstrating the slding action of their Robot.
Gary say," The hardest part of building this sliding arm was getting the pieces to touch the touch sensor the way we wanted."

When asked what was the importance of the touch sensor, Eric said, " When the bar pushes the touch sensor, we have it programmed for the motor to run back and forth. That's what makes the slider go back and forth."

They reportedly plan to knock flags over and connect the pipeline and protect the pump with this mechanism in the Ocean Odysey Challenge.

You can see them demonstrating the sliding bar here.

Smackdown Lego Challenge!!

2005-12-14T09:59:00.000-05:00

Today at 4:oopm the long awaited Lego Smackdown happens. Mr. Wright/Mr. Daly take on the work groups to practice for competing at the FLL tournament.

Recurring Problems-New Solutions

2005-12-12T20:10:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone,

Several work groups are experiencing the same problems. Some of these problems include, but are not limited to:

-Difficulty traveling in a straight line.
-Turning the exact desired distance or angle.
-Traveling a very precise distance.

When you experience any or all of these three problems you will find that accomplishing ANY mission will seem impossible.

Your group will not likely score any points until you master the ability to get your robot to go across the game field and end up where the mission is set up for you to complete.

Some groups have overcome turning issues by using pivoting wheels- Good idea! Ask the Galileo group how they got their two-pivot design to straighten up. They used the advice of Dr. Antreasian, our mentor, to design in flexiblity. Galilieo uses a two-pivot robot to turn accurately to attempt several missions. They have a hard time getting it to go really straight for some other mission. They have solved this problem with a simple but brilliant solution. Find out what they did.

One last thing today: You may want to change your way of thinking about the following idea. "My robot has a front end and a back end." On Wednesday, you will see a demonstration of letting go of this concept when you see the Mr. Wright/Mr. Daly robot perform in the Wednesday Student Teacher Smackdown MiniChallenge!

This Week:

2005-12-11T21:55:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone,

This is an important week for Lego Robotics at I.S.93. We have a practice tournament Saturday, December 17th from 9:00am to 2:00pm.

We need to look at this match as a dress rehearsal. This match will be like the FLL meet in January. There will be many rounds. You will be nervous. Things will happen. We have to depend on our brain power to plan, execute our game plan and then most importantly we will have to be able to adapt. We have the smarts to re-build and re-program right on the spot as conditions require. That is our strength as a team and will be the most stressful thing to accomplish.

They do not give awards for the team that enjoys themselves the most but I want to have fun doing this. I plan on having fun! I am very proud of our progress as a team. I hope you are planning to have fun- I do not want it to be an accident.

Last thing. All parents are invited. Ideally for me, there would be at least one parent for every student present. So ask them to come.

Explore Europa with a Robotic Sub!

2005-12-09T16:25:00.000-05:00

Photo Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

You guys gave great close guesses. The picture taken by the Galileo spacecraft as it flew by Europa is very similar to those taken in the Artic and Antarctic regions of Earth. The large structures in the picture resemble large ice rafts or icebergs that have broken apart and moved around. The stuff in the middle or between these ice rafts looks like the surface of an ocean that has repeatibly melted and froze many times. Scientists believe "it resembles the disruption of pack-ice on polar seas during spring thaws on Earth" (quoted from JPL webpage). This surface is indeed made up mostly of water ice. Doesn't it look like the surface of a liquid which has become frozen? The lines criss-crossing everywhere are believed to be cracks produced by the pressure exerted on the surface from the tugging by Jupiter's gravity.

These processes on Europa's surface are an extremely important finding for scientists. This image suggests that Europa has an ocean of water lying just beneath this icy surface. It also suggests that Europa has an internal heat source which helps keep the ocean from staying completely frozen. And where you have water and heat, what may you find?

Life!

Scientists believe its possible that Europa may harbor extraterrestial life forms in its oceans.

Now there are plans to send a spacecraft back to Jupiter to study Europa in more detail. Ultimately, scientists would like to probe beneath the ice and into this ocean with a Robotic Submarine, but such a mission is extremely expensive and technically challenging.

Will you students be the ones to design that robot when you are older?

Galileo's Success is due to Redundancy & Flexibility in its Design

2005-12-01T05:12:00.000-05:00

Photo Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

Wow! I'm impressed with the Galileo Group's research into the Galileo mission.

Here a picture of the surface of Europa (second closest major moon of Jupiter). Apart from other evidence, this image shows why scientist believe there's an ocean beneath Europa's surface. What do you think it shows?

This may be beyond the scope of the Lego Ocean Odyssey challenge, but its something you may want to think about when you are designing your robots.

The success of the Galileo mission at Jupiter was due to 2 important design elements that everyone should try to plan into their robot designs. Galileo had redundant systems for critical functions and a versatile computer that was capable of being reprogrammed from Earth.

The Galileo mission was designed to send high volumes of data over its high gain antenna from Jupiter. This antenna was suppose to unfold like an umbrella, from its stowed position after the spacecraft was on its way to Jupiter. However, a few of the pins that held the ribs of the umbrella-shape antenna became permanently stuck and thus the antenna could not open. Fortunately, Galileo also had a redundant low gain antenna, but the rate of data sent back to Earth was only a trickle. The comparison is like the slow drip of a faucet to buckets full of data being sent back to Earth.

To make use of this 'slower' antenna, engineers had to redesign the entire mission with this lower data rate in mind. They programmed algorithms to compress or shrink the size of the images without losing too much information. This helped Galileo send thousands of pictures which otherwise would have been impossible. Furthermore, with the high gain antenna, the spacecraft would essentially relay the images to the ground as they were being shuttered. However, this would not work with the low gain antenna. For the low gain mission, engineers made good use of Galileo's tape recorder. Data from the close observations of the Jupiter's moons were compressed and recorded on the tape recorder. Then the data was read out into the telemetry stream and modulated onto the radio signal sent back to Earth. So the tape recorder was essentially a redundant system for handling the data and its return to Earth.

Now, with the tape recorder becoming a vital part of the redesigned mission, we could not let it fail. Our precise navigation requirements for entering into orbit around Jupiter required us to take optical navigation images of Jupiter's moons. But on the final approach to Jupiter, the tape recorder's tape became stuck. I believe it was pretty much like glued to the tape head. Without these images, Galileo's orbit insertion did not meet the requirements needed to stay on our planned orbital tour of Jupiter. Faced with this possibility beforehand however, we came up with a plan to change the first orbit around Jupiter according to the miss distance from our target and eventually reconnect the orbit to the planned tour. A few months after orbit insertion, the engineers were able to figure a way to unstick the tape and get it working again. They had to be very careful since it would have been very easy to break the tape. Luckily, they had a spare tape recorder at JPL to verify the problem, test their ideas on and verify the fix. According to my memory, this problem happened 3 or 4 more times during Galileo's mission.

I won't go on and on, but there were a few other major problems that Galileo experienced. Despite these problems, engineers and scientists were able to overcome them by making use of Galileo's redundant systems and by reprogramming it from many 100's of millions of miles away. When you can only afford to build one spacecraft and send it to Jupiter, you need to provide your spacecraft with backup systems and allow flexibility in the design of its computer and how it interacts with all its subsystems to control the vehicle.

Galileo Group

2005-11-28T15:52:00.000-05:00

The Galileo group chose their name after doing research on the NASA site--Great choice!
They also produced a great bulletin board describing the NASA Galileo mission. I learned so much about the project. I was very suprised the group went so in-depth to find the group name. Well done.

Picture Credit: http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Ap/Press/galileohi.jpg

Complex Programs: Using Segments

2005-11-22T09:54:00.001-05:00

I like to borrow techniques that other people come up with to solve problems.

So I have applied the Math Problem Solving Technique of "Make it Simpler" to help me make a large overwhelming problem a series of smaller, more managable segments.

Yesterday in class, we discussed how this idea works. Please post a comment describing the mini-steps you might use to get your robot to the submarine and back to the base.

Rotation Sensor Angle Sensor

2005-11-09T21:22:00.000-05:00

Here is a picture of one of the Lego sensors known as an Angle Sensor or a Rotation Sensor. Notice the hole in it. That's where an axle fits.

Here is how it works. The sensor senses the rotating axle. It counts in little steps a sixteenth at a time. When the sensor port displays 16 it is telling you that the axle rotated one full revolution.

So to make the sensor useful to all of us future engineers, we can measure the distance we want to go by using the "View" feature on the RCX. Then in Robolab, we enter the numerical value we took from View and enter that value into numerical input on the sensor icon in the code. Small adjustments are made after some trial and error for that mission. This becomes a very acurate method to measure distance.

The Angle Sensor gets that name versus Rotation Sensor from this: Since the sensor counts in small bits at time and those bits are equal and there are sixteen of them, people who know these characteristics divide the 360 degrees of rotation by the sixteen bits and now can measure angles. Each increment of that division problem yields 22.5 degrees- Very helpful when using an Angle Sensor on a motor for an arm. Two counts is 45 degrees. Four makes 90 degrees and so on.

Does this give you any ideas?- if so post a comment. Use rules of regular English like Capital Letters! These posts are getting sloppy. This is a forum for intellectual exchange between students and teachers. It is not a place for AOL lingo. I want your comments- not slang.

Keep in mind this is the WorldWideWeb- anyone, anywhere may read this. Your potential audience is anyone in the world with internet connectivity. You are known only by what and how you write. If you write nonsense- well, there you go. BUT! So many of you write such execellent comments. We get very good feedback about your participation. That makes me so proud of all of you!
Thanks.

More Training at ITHS Election Day

2005-11-08T12:27:00.000-05:00

More training! Lucky me. The Region 4, NYCBOE guys Norm and Steve are at it again.
You see me and Norm working out an angle-sensor problem on my 'Bot. Their training techniques are "hands-on" which means they are having the teachers try to score points on an Ocean Odyssey board just like you.

I am trying to get the 'Bot to move the Reef to shallow water and then move up the Barge to get the Research Submarine. What challenge are you working on. What's next?

Gears, Gear Trains 11-3-05

2005-11-03T20:46:00.000-05:00

Gears can be confusing! Today in class we had a great experience discussing,predicting, observing and making conclusions about the simplest of gear ideas.

We found out that when a 40 tooth gear turns for one revolution that the 8 tooth gear will turn 5 times. We then used that idea of gear ratio to discuss bicycle gears in relation to speed, effort, and power. We'll discuss some other concepts like torque in the near future.

What a day! I think several students were not very clear about how the ratios work. Now I think we made progress. We will do more demonstrations with gears and wheel size. The demonstration with the two robots with identical gears going different speeds due to different wheel size was an eye-opener too!

Any thoughts about todays demonstrations or ideas for further discussion?
How about just telling me one simple thing you learned today?
I would like a comment from every student.

BUILD ROBOTS THAT YOU CONTROL WITH GEAR TRAINS!

Lego Constructopedia Explains Gears!

2005-11-03T20:09:00.000-05:00

Gears!Gears!Gears!Gears!Gears!

This site has great moving graphics to help you understand gears and pulleys!

Try this one.

2005-10-31T19:05:00.000-05:00

Write in an English sentence what this code will make the robot do. I wrote this last year.

Hint: The answer to a Yogi Berra riddle would be "Pick it up."

Agenda week of 10-31-05

2005-10-30T19:25:00.000-05:00

There are three main priorities for Lego this week.

One will focusing on advancing our programming skills coupled with ROBUST DESIGN building.

The last will be the completing the set up of the Ocean Odyssey Challenge table.

I would like you to post a comment about this simple program.
Tell me in an English sentence what this piece of code will make a Robot do.

Naming our Sub Groups

2005-10-30T08:41:00.000-05:00

We spoke about re-naming our sub-groups last week. I did not put much thought to the original names mainly because they work. Your groups are called Talent1, Talent2- functional but boring. I thought it might be fun for you to come up with names on your own. I thought it also might be a sneaky way for me to get you to explore the NASA site if I suggested that you take group names from the spaces vehicles or moons of planets from the NASA pages. Names like "The Titans" or "Eon" sound really neat. It would show me you went the sites, read the material, and it would honor our mentor.

Many of the photographs from space are there because of the work of our mentor, Dr. Antreasian.

A word about teams: We have one team for Lego Robotics. We will compete together as one unit. While we are learning to build and program we will work in smaller sub-groups. We will all learn more from each other and we will all find certain roles within our team. By working together, we will be able to bring much brain power to bear on our challenges. I will change members of the sub-groups often. The purpose of this is for us to really get to know each other well. It is also my way of getting slower groups going by bringing in more experienced students and if a group is strong, the new member might need to benefit from the new group's expertise. By constantly changing group members and groups, students will be forced to adapt and also to both teach and learn in a new situation for MAXIMUM achievement!

Mentor News

2005-10-26T20:37:00.000-04:00

Definitions of mentor on the Web:

to serve as a teacher or trusted counselor; "The famous professor mentored him during his years in graduate school"
a wise and trusted guide and advisor
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

In Greek mythology, Mentor was the son of Alcumus and, in his old age, a friend of Odysseus. When Odysseus left for the Trojan War, he placed Mentor in charge of his son, Telemachus and his palace.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentor

We have a new mentor for Lego Robotics at IS 93. I will tell you we went to Brebuef High School together. I will tell you he has an amazingly interesting job.

Peter Antreasian is his name. He will tell you about himself. I am very grateful to have him bring his experience and wisdom to our Lego Robotics team.

What is going to make our Club/Mentor slightly different than a traditional mentor relationship is that Peter Antreasian will mentor us from afar! We will use internet technology to communicate. Blogging, email, maybe Skype.com, digital photography and who-knows-what-else will be used.

WELCOME!

Wednesday Lego Progress

2005-10-26T19:55:00.000-04:00

Hey guys,

Today was great. First of all:
•Many students came up during their lunch period to work on websites.
To seek out extra time to work on things you want to work shows great interest and motivation. Keep it up!
•During class, much progress was made on the Robolab programs.
You know, we do not always have to hit a grandslam Homerun. We need singles to make progress. ( Baseball World
Series -type lingo) In other words several students learned KEY tools in Robolab like the right-click- replace trick for
replacing an icon in the program line instead of deleting it, adding a new icon, and then re-wiring. That was a
tremendous time saving tool and shows progress in learning to be fluent in the Robolab program.

•Many new students have joined the Beacon Afterschool Lego activity. For the class groups, you may notice progress has been made on your project that you did not do yourself- it was not alien elves!
TEAMWORK is what we call this. As a group, we can accomplish more. Yes, many can do much alone- but together, the
sky is limit. (More on this later.)

•Ricky and Serge, two new sixth grade Beacon kids, have completed construction of the "Pipeline" mission which is part of the FLL Ocean Odyssey Challenge. You know how hard these are to construct. These two came up and in two days finished it.
Great job.

I want to see comments to this post from my Robotics kids. I want to read how your progress is going.
Friday is not Beacon. You will need a written, signed note from your parent to attend Friday, Robotics Club. We will meet
from dismissal to 5:00pm. I will give you my cell phone number so your parents can contact you by calling me in class for early pick-ups.

Mr. Wright's Saturday Morning in Brooklyn

2005-10-22T10:47:00.000-04:00

This is John and Corey from Visions Education.
These guys are two of the experts who help train other coaches like me. They train me- I train you!

They are testing a 'Bot on the Ocean Odessey Challenge game board. The training is taking place right now. I am working on a program to do the Dolphin challenge.
This is taking place at PolyTech University and is sponsored by Region 4 Technology.

Scientific Method

2005-10-19T18:27:00.000-04:00

Hey everybody,
Today was an amazing day in class.

Here is a partial list of the activities all or some of you started, continued, or completed today during a 42 minute class period.

1. Built Simple-Bots
2. Initialized RCX
3. Loaded Robolab into Laptops
4. Programmed Robolab for 2' up and back Challenge
5. Put batteries into RCX
6. Loaded .vi Inventer program into RCX
7. Tested Simple-Bot
8. Entered the 5 steps of the Scientific Method into your Lego Journals.
9. Surfed Lego Blog

I am very happy to see so many more students adding data, observations, test results, hypothesis, predictions and other entries today. Keep up the good work!!!!!

Please, someone post the Scientific Method as I have it on the bulletin board in room 301. I think it will be a great addition to the Blog. I will allow you to use my admin id to create a fresh post.

Tomorrow! Great news! The user id's and passwords are working for your websites. I hate to take you away from continuing the challenge tomorrow so I may have only 12 of you working on your new websites. The other members of the Talent Crews will do all 9 activities listed above. You know what needs to be done.

***********Major recognition for the Talent6 group- You are the first group to build, initialize, program, load and test your bot! I think you are probably surprised that you came so far so quick. AND you entered everything into your journals! Hey everybody, that's what it looks like to get a 100% for the day. Excellent job!

If you care to comment today, please share how your activities are going, you know, problems you had, insights you came up with. Things like that.

See you.

FW

LegoRobotics Blog Challenge

2005-10-11T10:05:00.000-04:00

Challenge to my students:
Pick one of the Science Standards I have posted below by browsing through them. Do any of seem like they were written for Robotics? I think so. See if you can write a comment to this post describing how LegoRobotics meets a specific standard. In other words, I can see direct correlations, one after the other, of how the problems of LegoRootics hits many many NYS Learning Standards for Science. Can you?

Pick one standard and tell how you see one specific thing about Robotics hits exactly that standard and is met by doing the aspects of Robitics you thought about.

You have to think about how we go about doing Robotics. You have to think about the Standards as you read them on the blog posting. Then you have to write how they are same thing. Got it?

Read the Blog.
Comment as described above. No last names- no personal info- No talking to or meeting of strangers-EVER!

7th Grade Science Standards NYS

2005-10-09T18:59:00.000-04:00

Science Standards for NY, Grade 7

NY.1.
Analysis, Inquiry and Design: Students will use mathematical analysis, scientific inquiry, and engineering design, as appropriate, to pose questions, seek answers, and develop solutions.

1.1.
Scientific Inquiry: The central purpose of scientific inquiry is to develop explanations of natural phenomena in a continuing, creative process.

1.1.1.
Students formulate questions independently with the aid of references appropriate for guiding the search for explanations of everyday observations.

1.1.3.
Students represent, present, and defend their proposed explanations of everyday observations so that they can be understood and assessed by others.

1.1.4.
Students seek to clarify, to assess critically, and to reconcile with their own thinking the ideas presented by others, including peers, teachers, authors, and scientists.

1.2.
Scientific Inquiry: Beyond the use of reasoning and consensus, scientific inquiry involves the testing of proposed explanations involving the use of conventional techniques and procedures and usually requiring considerable ingenuity.

1.2.1.
Students use conventional techniques and those of their own design to make further observations and refine their explanations, guided by a need for more information.

1.2.2.
Students develop, present, and defend formal research proposals for testing their own explanations of common phenomena, including ways of obtaining needed observations and ways of conducting simple controlled experiments.

1.2.3.
Students carry out their research proposals, recording observations and measurements (e.g., lab notes, audio tape, computer disk, video tape) to help assess the explanation.

1.3.
Scientific Inquiry: The observations made while testing proposed explanations, when analyzed using conventional and invented methods, provide new insights into phenomena.

1.3.1.
Students design charts, tables, graphs and other representations of observations in conventional and creative ways to help them address their research question or hypothesis.

1.3.2.
Students interpret the organized data to answer the research question or hypothesis and to gain insight into the problem.

1.3.3.
Students modify their personal understanding of phenomena based on evaluation of their hypothesis.

1.4.
Mathematical Analysis: Abstraction and symbolic representation are used to communicate mathematically.

1.4.1.
Students extend mathematical notation and symbolism to include variables and algebraic expressions in order to describe and compare quantities and express mathematical relationships.

1.5.
Mathematical Analysis: Deductive and inductive reasoning are used to reach mathematical conclusions.

1.5.1.
Students use inductive reasoning to construct, evaluate, and validate conjectures and arguments, recognizing that patterns and relationships can assist in explaining and extending mathematical phenomena.

1.6.
Mathematical Analysis: Critical thinking skills are used in the solution on mathematical problems.

1.6.1.
Students apply mathematical knowledge to solve real-world problems that arise from the investigation of mathematical ideas, using representations such as pictures, charts, and tables.

1.7.
Engineering Design: Engineering design is an iterative process involving modeling and optimization finding the best solution within given constraints which is used to develop the logical solutions to problems within given constraints.

1.7.1.
Students identify needs and opportunities for technical solutions from an investigation of situations of general or social interest.

1.7.2.
Students locate and utilize a range of printed, electronic, and human information resources to obtain ideas.

1.7.3.
Students consider constraints and generate several ideas for alternative solutions, using group and individual ideation techniques (group discussion, brainstorming, forced connections, role play); defer judgment until a number of ideas have been generated; evaluate (critique) ideas; and explain why the chosen solution is optimal.

1.7.4.
Students develop plans, including drawings with measurements and details of construction, and construct a model of the solution, exhibiting a degree of craftsmanship.

1.7.5.
Students, in a group setting, test their solution against design specifications, present and evaluate results, describe how the solution might have been modified for different or better results, and discuss trade-offs that might have to be made.

NY.2.
Information Systems: Students will access, generate, process, and transfer information using appropriate technologies.

2.1.
Information Systems: Information technology is used to retrieve, process, and communicate information and as a tool to enhance learning.

2.1.1.
Students use a range of equipment and software to integrate several forms of information in order to create good quality audio, video, graphic, and text-based presentations.

2.1.2.
Students use spreadsheets and database software to collect, process, display, and analyze information. Students access needed information from electronic databases and on-line telecommunication services.

2.1.4.
Students collect data from probes to measure events and phenomena.

2.1.5.
Students use simple modeling programs to make predictions.

2.2.
Information Systems: Knowledge of the impacts and limitations of information systems is essential to its effective and ethical use.

2.2.1.
Students understand the need to question the accuracy of information displayed on a computer because the results produced by a computer may be affected by incorrect data entry.

2.2.2.
Students identify advantages and limitations of data-handling programs and graphics programs.

2.2.3.
Students understand why electronically stored personal information has greater potential for misuse than records kept in conventional form.

2.3.
Information Systems: Information technology can have positive and negative impacts on society, depending upon how it is used.

2.3.1.
Students use graphical, statistical, and presentation software to presents project to fellow classmates.

2.3.2.
Students describe applications of information technology in mathematics, science, and other technologies that address needs and solve problems in the community.

2.3.3.
Students explain the impact of the use and abuse of electronically generated information on individuals and families.

NY.4.
The Physical Setting: Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science.

4.1.
The Earth and celestial phenomena can be described by principles of relative motion and perspective.

4.1.1.
Students explain daily, monthly, and seasonal changes on earth.

4.2.
Many of the phenomena that we observe on Earth involve interactions among components of air, water, and land.

4.2.1.
Students explain how the atmosphere (air), hydrosphere (water), and lithosphere (land) interact, evolve, and change.

4.2.2.
Students describe volcano and earthquake patterns, the rock cycle, and weather and climate changes.

4.3.
Matter is made up of particles whose properties determine the observable characteristics of matter and its reactivity.

4.3.1.
Students observe and describe properties of materials, such as density, conductivity, and solubility.

4.3.2.
Students distinguish between chemical and physical changes.

4.3.3.
Students develop their own mental models to explain common chemical reactions and changes in states of matter.

4.4.
Energy exists in many forms, and when these forms change energy is conserved.

4.4.1.
Students describe the sources and identify the transformations of energy observed in everyday life.

4.4.2.
Students observe and describe heating and cooling events.

4.4.3.
Students observe and describe energy changes as related to chemical reactions.

4.4.4.
Students observe and describe the properties of sound, light, magnetism, and electricity.

4.4.5.
Students describe situations that support the principle of conservation of energy.

4.5.
Energy and matter interact through forces that result in changes in motion.

4.5.1.
Students describe different patterns of motion of objects.

NY.4.
The Living Environment: Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science.

4.1.
Living things are both similar to and different from each other and nonliving things.

4.1.1.
Students compare and contrast the parts of plants, animals, and one-celled organisms.

4.1.2.
Students explain the functioning of the major human organ systems and their interactions.

4.2.
Organisms inherit genetic information in a variety of ways that result in continuity of structure and function between parents and offspring.

4.2.1.
Students describe sexual and asexual mechanisms for passing genetic materials from generation to generation.

4.2.2.
Students describe simple mechanisms related to the inheritance of some physical traits in offspring.

4.3.
Individual organisms and species change over time.

4.3.1.
Students describe sources of variation in organisms and their structures and relate the variations to survival.

4.3.2.
Students describe factors responsible for competition within species and the significance of that competition.

4.4.
The continuity of life is sustained through reproduction and development.

4.4.1.
Students observe and describe the variations in reproductive patterns of organisms, including asexual and sexual reproduction.

4.4.2.
Students explain the role of sperm and egg cells in sexual reproduction.

4.4.4.
Students observe and describe cell division at the microscopic level and its macroscopic effects.

4.5.
Organisms maintain a dynamic equilibrium that sustains life.

4.5.1.
Students compare the way a variety of living specimens carry out basic life functions and maintain dynamic equilibrium.

4.6.
Plants and animals depend on each other and their physical environment.

4.6.1.
Students describe the flow of energy and matter through food chains and food webs.

4.6.2.
Students provide evidence that green plants make food and explain the significance of this process to other organisms.

4.7.
Human decisions and activities have had a profound impact on the physical and living environment.

4.7.1.
Students describe how living things, including humans, depend upon the living and nonliving environment for their survival.

4.7.2.
Students describe the effects of environmental changes on humans and other populations.

NY.6.
Interconnectedness: Common Themes: Students will understand the relationships and common themes that connect mathematics, science, and technology and apply the themes to these and other areas of learning.

6.1.
Systems Thinking: Through systems thinking, people can recognize the commonalities that exist among all systems and how parts of a system interrelate and combine to perform specific functions.

6.1.2.
Students identify common things that can be considered to be systems (e.g., a plant population, a subway system, human beings).

6.3.
Magnitude and Scale: The grouping of magnitudes of size, time, frequency, and pressures or other units of measurement into a series of relative order provides a useful way to deal with the immense range and the changes in scale that affect the behavior and design of systems.

6.3.2.
Students identify the biggest and the smallest values as well as the average value of a system when given information about its characteristics and behavior.

6.5.
Patterns of Change: Identifying patterns of change is necessary for making predictions about future behavior and conditions.

6.5.1.
Students use simple instruments to measure such quantities as distance, size, and weight and look for patterns in the data.

6.6.
Optimization: In order to arrive at the best solution that meets criteria within constraints, it is often necessary to make trade-offs.

6.6.2.
Students use simple quantitative methods, such as ratios, to compare costs to benefits of a decision problem.

NY.7.
Interdisciplinary Problem Solving: Students will apply the knowledge and thinking skills of mathematics, science, and technology to address real-life problems and make informed decisions.

7.1.
Connections: The knowledge and skills of mathematics, science, and technology are used together to make informed decisions and solve problems, especially those relating to issues of science/technology/society, consumer decision making, design, and inquiry into phenomena.

7.1.2.
Students make informed consumer decisions by seeking answers to appropriate questions about products, services, and systems; determining the cost/benefit and risk/benefit tradeoffs; and applying this knowledge to a potential purchase.

7.1.3.
Students design solutions to real-world problems of general social interest related to home, school, or community using scientific experimentation to inform the solution and applying mathematical concepts and reasoning to assist in developing a solution.

7.1.4.
Students describe and explain phenomena by designing and conducting investigations involving systematic observations, accurate measurements, and the identification and control of variables; by inquiring into relevant mathematical ideas; and by using mathematical and technological tools and procedures to assist in the investigation.

Teachers/ websites

2005-10-06T16:56:00.000-04:00

Anyone interested in a quick, effective web site. See Mr. Wright to get one started.

Robolab, Thursday 10/6/05

2005-10-06T16:35:00.000-04:00

I would like to thank Robert for presenting Robolab today. I could tell by all of the hands in the air that many people understood the basics already. Just think, this is all new to everyone but instead of being lost or feeling like you can not do it, I think, almost everyone was following along and no one felt totally lost. You will get your chance next time we meet to program in Robolab.

Remeber, it is all new. That's all- just new. Not impossible.

Next week we continue the challenge of making and programming a robot the moves up two feet, stops, and then reverses two feet.

When you come into the class, get your kit and Robot. Everyone gets out their Journals. One person will get a laptop to start programming the RCX at the same table with their group where the Robot is being constructed.

If you have not initialized the RCX yet, get that step done. Robert and Gary will help you with that. All it means is that we have to get the Infrared tower to recognize the laptop and vice versa.

If I have not given you batteries yet, see me to get them. They need to be in the RCX to be to get initialized and then programmed.

FW

A Photo of Me

2005-10-02T13:49:00.000-04:00

This is me in my office. The pencil growing out of my ear is indeed a #2.

Lego Robotics this week: 10-5, 10-7

2005-10-02T09:30:00.000-04:00

Hi Guys,
This week:
-Expect to continue working on the first challenge for newbies: Create a Robot that moves forward two feet, stops for a moment, then reverses to its original starting point.

-The other guys will continue to assemble the challenge missions from the Ocean Odyssey. Once the missions are assembled, they will attempt to accomplish a mission.

-Robert will present the first introduction to programming in Robolab. I am looking forward to that!

Please remember that cleaning up at the end of the period helps to maintain the sanity of Mr. Wright.

See you Monday, on time, of course.
Mr. Wright

Link Index for Teachers,

2005-10-02T09:01:00.000-04:00

Teachers can organize important links for a lesson or for professional use.

If you want students to search or "Google" a topic they can easily search aimlessly for hours. Giving students say 2 to 6 websites that the you have already researched for appropriate content, their search is focused and hopefully more productive. You can list your links on an index that you can send them to on the web. They search from there from your references.

I have my links organized on a web-based index. In other words, there is a website that I joined where I am able to cut and paste the addresses of the links I want my students to use. Go look: http://my.portaportal.com/ My user name is fwright2.

Users can log in to fwright2 as a guest to view and click on my links. Currently, I have two crucial websites for my Lego-Robotics class, a lego site with all of the missions for our upcoming competition and another with manuals, how-to's, and other information to help my students learn how to plan, build and program their robots.

I can help you to sign-up and get started anytime.

FW