Supernova

State Tournament

2011-03-06T16:30:00.005-06:00

Congratulations Supernova for a great job at the State tournament. They were the only team called back for both Technical and Project, and were honored with the 1st Place Ambassador Award and 2nd Place Robot Design Award.

We're very proud of the team. They're currently entered in the FLL Global Innovation Award contest and are working on their provisional patent application. It's a fantastic idea and they've put in a lot of creative energy.

Vote for their idea at

http://fllinnovationaward.firstlegoleague.org/teams/supernova/submission/automated-club-foot-orthotic

Batavia Regional

2011-01-06T21:42:00.005-06:00

I couldn't let a whole year go by without a new post.

Our Batavia Regional, less than 3 weeks ago went very well. Supernova earned the project award, their first ever, and an invitation to state. They were selected to present their project to the entire audience and did a really nice job. I was exceptionally proud of their teamwork interview. Gracious professionalism all the way.

Although they were 5th out of 15 teams, their robot score was well below what they had hoped for. Many teams were lamenting the fact that nothing worked the same at tournament as it did back on their practice tables. We brought a 370 pt solution and our best was 195. Still, it's not all about the robots. They really bit off a lot this year, using an entirely different programming language. So, although their performance was not as high as they would like, they have grown and learned a tremendous amount getting to this point. They have basically had to port all of the software work they had developed the previous few years, which involved writing lower-level functions to regain some of the functionality that was built in with the previous language.

Congratulations Supernova

400 point run at State

2010-01-23T10:24:00.007-06:00

Well Done, Supernova

2010-01-22T23:46:00.004-06:00

Supernova had a fantastic showing in Arlington Heights last weekend. What we learn is worth much more than what we win, but this season the team was able to both grow as a team and also earn the following awards.

1st Place Robot Design Award

2nd Place Robot Performance Award

3rd Place Ambassador Award

They were judged Friday evening for project, teamwork, technical and for the ambassador's award. On Saturday, after their 2nd robot match, the team decided they should turn down the power on the arm when retrieving a grey loop - as it was throwing it instead of capturing it. That's when we learned that the laptop hard drive had crashed!

We hadn't yet learned that we would soon receive call-backs in both project and technical. This is a very good thing, but we needed a computer for project. Thanks to iLego for their generous offer of a laptop, but luckily Mrs. Naughton had a backup computer in her car.

Paul frantically started copying our robot programs and project materials from a jump drive and got the backup computer configured just in time to grab a quick lunch, immediately followed by the tech follow up, an impromptu chat with Scott Evans! and then the project call-back (for which he was using the newly configured laptop for the presentation - yikes!) ... and then his table run! I single out Paul because he held it together through a really daunting series of high-pressure events over the coarse of a couple of hours - although the chat with Scott was an eye-in-the-storm before the project call-back and 3rd table run.

Mr. Evans was the epitome of gracious professionalism, complementing the boys on their accomplishments and discussing their robots.

In this shot, they're discussing the team's first robot design of the season - a very cool pneumatically actuated 4x4 that was abandoned in favor of our low-profile "dually" robot. He commented that older teams like ours are often too emotionally attached to a design to make significant changes, sometimes unable to recognize basic flaws that limit ultimate performance. He complimented them on having the wisdom to see that this robot was not going to meet the requirements and that they could come up with a better design. I'm paraphrasing, but this is the gist of his observation.

He asked what they were planning for next season and the team mentioned that their coaches were suggesting a move to robo-lab. He encouraged this in that robo-lab has a higher ceiling of limitations than NXT-G and, more importantly, is more similar to what they would be likely to encounter out in the real world of programming.

There's more to report, but it's getting late. I'll close by saying we're extremely proud of the team's accomplishments this season. Yes, they've been recognized at tournament, but they've also learned a lot, grown as a team and have been, and continue to be, tireless ambassadors for FLL. They are currently preparing for 2 presentations to our local community, which I'll report on when the time comes.

LEGO!

Good Luck Supernova!

2010-01-15T13:53:00.001-06:00

Good luck to Supernova at the IL State tournament this evening and tomorrow. Your coaches and parents are very proud of the great work you've done this season, including extensive project research, helping other teams, introducing FLL to others, and showing some tremendous teamwork.

I'd like to share a little bit about how they've used teamwork to improve their robot's reliability. The last 2 robot practice sessions were typical of how they've been working in small groups and handing off their results and issues to the next group through the use of their log book. For full disclosure, the hand off in this example was verbal (BAM really had to leave by the time they figured it out!), but the log book has been their primary means of tracking robot errors and fixes for the last couple of months.

They had originally planned on last Jockey practice on Sunday, but 2 of the teams decided to do a little more practice. BAM (Bridget Andrew Michael) did some minor reliability tweaks and were rewarded with consecutive 390, 390, 390, 400, 400 runs. Their final run of the day (with Mr. Naughton watching!) was a 340. The "falling arm" in mission 2 was back. They figured out what was wrong (and why previous attempts to fix didn't work) but didn't have time to fix it.

Danny Patrick and Nate practiced the next day and did the fix. The Stop and Wait my-block was disrupting a parallel path meant to hold the arm up. Patrick suggested replacing it with a modified "Stop and Wait BC", which leaves the arm motor (A) undisturbed in the main path while the parallel path keeps it from falling. This way, the navigation using B&C motors would run identically while still fixing the problem. Danny did the changes. They got a 400 on their last run and the arm was definitely holding during mission 2.

Great job!

Reliability - Looper-Scooper or Looper-Lopper?

2010-01-10T19:57:00.000-06:00

The team has had limited time since their late regional to make any major changes. After Batavia, we had a brainstorming session to decide on what should be done to prepare for State based on our robot performance and the feedback forms.

So far, they've revised the script, re-shot and edited the "present ghost" video, brought to mind their teamwork skills, and have worked in small teams to incrementally improve robot reliability while each of the three 3-man teams have continued to practice. At this stage, the failures are less spectacular (that's a very good thing!), but that makes it a challenge to say what caused missed points on the board, since a failure may not recur with any regularity. I've been coaching them on the importance of careful observation and it really paid off today.

Example: Joey, Paul and Alex were practicing and found Mission 3's implement was often hammering the first tall loop. Joey noticed that their "ramp" was not long enough, hitting the first loop end-on, missing it and throwing off the rest of the run. They increased the length - but then it was out of base. So they relocated it further back - but then the implement was lopping the first loop in half. Everyone was watching it, run after run, until finally Alex saw that the top of the implement was now hitting before the ramp - it was happening so fast it was hard to see. They shortened that part and it then started scooping loops every time. Now, it works every time.

The 3 jockey teams have done an exceptional job of tracking changes and passing on information to the next team using their collaboration tools. I'm really looking forward to observing their reliability in Arlington Heights this coming weekend.

Congratulations, Supernova - Off to State!

2009-12-19T21:27:00.008-06:00

Great job by the team today at the Batavia regional competition. Their coaches and parents are very proud of their hard work, extensive research and preparation that went into this years challenge. They earned the Technical Award, were 3rd place in robot performance points and earned an invitation to the State tournament.

We're especially proud of the way they handled a misunderstanding with the 1st round Ref. They asked him to remove the truck, which must happen for mission2 to succeed and the Ref did not do it, causing a rescue and loss of items collected. They did get the benefit of the doubt and were given back some points. We have 3 jockey teams and they had agreed ahead of time that the team with the highest score would get to run the 4th round unless they all agreed otherwise. After out teamwork judging we huddled to firm up who would run and they had already talked amongst themselves that they wanted the team with the truck collision to get a chance to run again. This showed great teamwork and gracious professionalism.

Way to go Supernova!

Mount Prospect Regional

2009-12-13T22:21:00.003-06:00

We're very proud of the group of Supernova students that helped out at the Mount Prospect tournament yesterday. Thank you Bridget, Patrick, Michael, Andrew, Joey, Paul and Danny.

Our Project Coach, Mrs. Naughton has her own team, Scrap Metal, that competed and it was great to have Supernova there to cheer for them and the Rams, a team coached by her brother-in-law Mr. Dan Naughton. Scrap Metal did very well for a rookie team and took 2nd place in robot points. Great job!

A Perfect Run!

2009-12-11T20:36:00.003-06:00

Congratulations to the team for their first ever 400-point run in their 3 years as a team. 2 of our 3 jockey teams were practicing today and on the last run, Michael, Andrew and Bridget had a perfect run.
Congratulations to everyone - this was a real team effort. Each time they practice, they've been refining and improving reliability. This isn't a routine score, but it was exciting to see everything run as right as it can, all on the same run.
The team is still working on handouts for the judges, team information sheets and practicing the project presentation, but tomorrow we're taking a break to go to Scrap Metal's regional in Mount Prospect. Some of the team are volunteering while others are just going up to encourage and cheer them on. Good luck Scrap Metal!

Getting Close!

2009-11-29T22:08:00.004-06:00

We did video taping of one sequence of the project presentation yesterday. Paul was the videographer, Michael was the son and Alex was "the dad" with a tie on.

Bridget, Patrick and Andrew worked on other team tasks during the "taping" and they all worked together for a couple hours afterward. Danny came down for a while too. It was like a mini-meeting. Paul and Danny's little brother Scott is in the foreground in the shot. He likes to help out with field setup and hang out with the team.

Chicago Technologies Sponsors Supernova

2009-11-22T21:15:00.004-06:00

Supernova is pleased to have Chicago Technologies as their new sponsor.

Thanks to the Toennies family for introducing us to them through Mr. Chris Fuller. We hope to be able to promote FLL even better with this new relationship.

Thanks for your support, Chicago Technologies.

Down to the Crunch

2009-11-22T20:51:00.004-06:00

The team still has a lot to do, but they're spinning up for the final push.

They started the year driving hard on the project. Lots of research and they're hard at work putting together their presentation. Thanks to Mr. Allen for helping out teaching Michael how to do calculations for water flow rates and advising on the robot table.

With the great start on the project, robot work took a back seat. In the last few weeks, though, they've gone from no missions working to having solutions to all challenges. Reliability is still an issue and they're working on known best methods from previous years to reduce run time: software organization for the jockeys, robot alignment, use of sensors where necessary and implement attachment time.

The technical board is blocked out and they now have the robot designed far enough to start putting in real info in the place holders.

A lot of work to go, but Supernova can do it.

Argonne, Clean Car Show, Mr. Fieseler, Naperville Sun

2009-10-25T09:54:00.005-05:00

A lot has been happening the last few weeks. Details will be posted on the teams own public website but highlights here.

Argonne National Lab-
We were very lucky to tour the Center for Transportation Research and see the hydrogen engine test lab, their test dyno, robotic driver and modular test platform, and a lot of other cool stuff. Our thanks to Thomas Wallner, Henning Lohse-Busch and Mike Kern for their time. In addition, we visited the advanced photon source.

Clean car show -
The event was not as heavily attended as planned but we were visited by a lot of interested families and kids. Another FLL team stopped by as well as Mayor Pradel. The kids (and I) liked all the cool cars - especially the Tesla. There were a lot of green vendors, including our friends from Litter Free Lunch.

Mr. Fieseler is a Naperville city Councilman and patent lawyer and is very interested and knowledgable in hydrogen's potential for a greener and cleaner future. He generously shared his time and talked to the group about hydrogen, bringing along fuel-cell car kit for them to build. A big thank you to him for the valuable insights that he shared.

Finally, we were in the Naperville Sun promoting FLL. The on-line link is below but the print version has a 2nd picture.
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/lifestyles/1838051,naperville-lego-building-esteem-na102209.article

Organization

2009-09-20T14:15:00.003-05:00

The team is struggling with organization. Now that they are all in middle school, outside activities mean that not all members make it to all meetings. During the first meeting's post- mortem of last season, they realized that a means of collaborating outside our normal meeting times would help them prepare for tournaments. They're also growing in responsibility and want to take more of the meeting planning responsibilities.

So, the last couple weeks of meetings, besides working on project and robot ideas, have focused on how the team can collaborate outside the meetings and generating schedules. As a result, they can now post and track their progress on line and share ideas that all can see. They still have a way to go as they refine and settle into using the new process, but it looks promising.

Thank you Supernova

2009-08-15T20:08:00.003-05:00

The team surprised the coaches on Tuesday with these tie-dye star plaques, designed built and signed by the team.

Thank you very much. We are proud to be your coaches.

Field Setup Kit Is Here!

2009-08-08T13:05:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone has had a good summer vacation. I'm really looking forward to the new season.

Meeting Agenda, Monday, 8/10/2009, 10:30-12:00

Spend first ½ hr discussing the new season and schedule ideas plus agenda for next meeting – so everyone will be prepared for post mortem and Brickworld and The Taste reports.
How would they like to organize new season?
Remember that Mrs. Naughton is mostly unavailable Thursdays, but Mrs. McCurdy will be able to help out as her schedule allows.
Most project research work will be done outside the meetings.
Thursdays may be partial meeting with ½ team every other week.
Robot table work outside the meetings is encouraged and we will support as much as possible.
Remaining time – build field setup

Meeting Agenda, Monday 8/17/2009, 10:30-12:00

Nail down this season’s organization based on last meeting ideas.
Reports back from Brickworld and The Taste.
Discuss WF - small post mortem on what went well, what can be improved?
What work we can do now to prepare for challenge announcement?

Taste of Chicago, Brickworld

2009-07-28T23:21:00.004-05:00

Alex and his mom, and Trevor and his dad attended Brickworld, promoting FLL and checking out all the cool stuff. The robot had light trouble, just like world festival, but they were able to run a number of missions and give a good showing. They made a lot of good contacts, plus Alex and Trevor met the CEO of LEGO International and the main developer for the Mindstorms project, plus another LEGO executive from CT. It shows how sharing our talents with others ends up benefiting us as well. Thank you to Mrs. McCurdy and Mr. Allen for organizing the Supernova support of this event.
The picture shows Paul and Patrick at The Taste of Chicago, where Inscite had a FIRST booth. Michael and Andrew and their family plus Joey attended as well. Supernova was complimented on their presentation. They had a great time. Thanks to Mrs. Naughton and Mr. and Mrs. Toennies for organizing this event.

Back from World Festival

2009-04-22T21:07:00.011-05:00

We're back from World Festival and had a fantastic experience. We learned so much from being there and the team is already busy thinking about and building next season's robot(s). Seeing the creative solutions, teamwork and spirit of the other teams was inspirational. Teams were also encouraged by Dean Kamen at the opening ceremonies and Woodie Flowers at the close.

Congratulations to Team STEELE for being honored with the 2nd Place Champion's Award! Very impressive. They were right behind us at the closing ceremonies and we were proud to have IL so prominently represented.

We also got a taste of the bigger robots. My oldest son Paul and I saw the WildStang FRC team compete Saturday and ran in to the Burnin' Rubber! FTC team in the stands. We found out later that WildStang was in the Winning Aliance and that Burnin' Rubber! won the PTC Design award. Way to go Illinios!

Thanks to FRC and FTC coaches Dan, Cathy and Eric for coming over to our pits and encouraging us at World Festival. Dan came out to welcome us as we entered the dome for our first practice round and came to watch 2 of our competition rounds.

We also had an exciting opportunity for a new 2009 FLL participant. Our project coach, Carol Naughton, will be starting a new team next year for her youngest son Matthew. His enthusiasm was noted by one of the volunteers and they invited him to meet Scott Evans on the floor of the dome, where he also signed Matthew's shirt.

Supernova was nominated for a programming award and for gracious professionalism. We did have some frustration with our robot performance, but we take it as a learning experience and, after all, that's what it's all about.

Thanks to everyone that supported and encouraged us this season.

Scott Evans signing Matthew Naughton's shirt.
(how cool is that!)

This is about 30 seconds in. Is the referee supposed to be holding the house?

They boys didn't run "find agreement" due to communication problems with the Taiwan team.

Mission3 Working

2009-03-22T09:30:00.002-05:00

Illinois State Champions

2009-01-21T21:22:00.006-06:00

Supernova being honored with the
Illinois State Champion's award on 1/17/2009

They also earned the 3rd place robot performance award.

Their coaches and parents are very proud of the hard work, dedication and teamwork that lead to this accomplishment.

GREAT JOB, GUYS!

This video shows their 1st round table run. The early robot rescue during the first mission group cost them 45 points. The rest of the round ran perfectly for 270 point run.

Team 1's Practice Run for State

2009-01-10T19:52:00.004-06:00

Batavia Regional Results

2008-12-09T21:51:00.004-06:00

Congratulations to Supernova for their accomplishments at the regional competition in Batavia this past Saturday. Their coaches are extremely proud of the hard work and outstanding professionalism during the tournament. The video was chosen to show how they took it in stride when the house came loose from the table and forced them to rescue the robot. They didn't give up and they didn't complain - the refs gave them the benefit of the doubt for raising the house.

- Cheered on our sister team, the "Lego Crushers" - helped them with 40 points by doing the shared "find agreement" mission.
- Met Nathan and his dad Dave and helped spread the FLL word. Hope to see them on a team next year!
- Top score at the robot table
- Robot Design Award - they liked the use of sensors, calibrations, program forks, myBlocks, the magnetically attached ramp and the "elegant execution of find alignment".
- Invitation to the Illinois State Tournament

Michael and Paul - Missions 1-4

2008-12-03T22:13:00.006-06:00

Get well soon, Joey. Michael and Paul trained today with Joey out sick but they were thinking about what tasks he would be doing so they can get him up to speed at Thursday's meeting.

In this video, they do all of the tasks they had planned except the robot gets caught on the pointer during the last click of "find alignment". Great job and after only 1 practice session!

Andrew - Mission 1

2008-12-02T07:08:00.006-06:00

Alex: scoop, arm, carbon

Andrew: Bike, insulation, carbon, tie it all together, reliability

Patrick & Tevor: gold ball, turn out lights, raise house

Team update, 11/30

2008-12-01T23:33:00.002-06:00

It was a productive and chaotic meeting Sunday. The team is obviously excited about the tournament.

Mrs. Naughton led them in project practice. They're looking good and now each have a job for setup at the tournament. Please check the "Our Project Web Site" link on the right to see all the hard work that she's guided them through. She also brought the team t-shirts with "SUPERNOVA" on the front so that we could get a team picture.

While the robot jockeys worked on mission strategy and practiced, Mrs. McCurdy had them doing technical and teamwork thinking in parallel, plus helped the other boys work on the boards and presentations.

The result of last week's robot work, including timing of the missions, made it clear that there's no way to run all 4 mission groups completely within 2.5 minutes. We'd also like all missions to be run, even if not in their entirety. Each group of jockeys separated to decide how they'd best like to run the missions. They made independent choices with similar point estimates of 235 points max.

Joey, Michael, Paul: Missions 1,2,3,4, but rescue the robot on missions 1 and 3 to save time.
Andrew, Danny, Patrick: Missions 1,2,3

Go Supernova!

Team update, 11/29

2008-11-29T23:12:00.003-06:00

On Friday, Patrick, Danny, Joey and Paul worked on missions and some tournament practice. Patrick and Danny tried very hard to make the transition from Andrew's to Patrick & Trevor's programs reliable, but there was too much uncertainty. It's been a hard day for me thinking about it since I could not see how to keep "pattrev" (Patrick and Trevor's mission) in the competition, and I would like to see all of the missions tried in Batavia.

"Danjoe" (Danny and Joey's) and "mn" (Mike and Nate's) missions rely on Andrew's to clear the table. Mike and Andrew returned from their vacation today and had a marathon with the robots. Andrew figured out a way of re-aligning, allowing pattrev to run reliably, choosing to not grab the computer to do so. He also captured the carbon and brought it to base, then pushing all the balls out to storage at once (they were not making it there reliably before. Michael sort of got the ice core captured but ran out of time. It may have been a low battery but it looks like we may have to ditch the ice core. He did make a mechanical improvements, including supporting the cargo arm without making the robot "active", which would have been breaking the rules.

Danny re-ran Danjoe, with the carbon balls in the way. This was to simulate the absence of running the Andrew program. He did this before knowing Andrew would fix the transition to pattrev. This work was important to help make the decision to get those balls out of the way (always run "Mission 1"). He also tweaked the program slightly to avoid a hangup on the levee tester.

Paul debugged a lot of issues with the robot and fixed some reliability issues in the program. The light sensor was not mounted properly and it need mechnical rebuild for his ramp mechanism as was done on the robot used for previous testing. He also reworked the end of his program and reliably makes it to the research area. Still a minor bug to test but it looks good.

Ballpark timing, with no transition time (for changing implements):
Mission Group max pts time
Group 1 (Andrew + Pattrev + Carbon) 110 1:10
Group 2 (Danjoe) 50 0:09
Group 3 (MN) 65 0:51 (less if no ice core for 30 pts.)
Group 4 (fludpt) 70 0:31 (0 or 1 pointer - tbd for 2 or 3)
Total: 295 2:41

From last year we know that transitions can take a significant amount of the time, especially since they are less practiced this year. Realistically, we can run no more than 3 missions. With that in mind, it looks like our best core will be around 200 of the possible 400 points. We will discuss all of this at the next meeting.

Team Update, 11/27/2008

2008-11-27T22:03:00.002-06:00

The team did a run-through on the project on Wed. and it was pretty good. A few more practices and they've got it. We need to also practice them carrying and setting up all the stuff, as if they were at the tournament.

Both robot teams worked on missions and Joey put together an outline for the technical presentation. They've gotten the 4 mission groups mostly working, but are over the time limit and they haven't practiced transitions between groups (swapping implements, loading/unloading payloads, finding the right buttons. With the time left in the season they will not be as practiced as last year. They will do fine, but the more practice, the better.

We've also had trouble moving programs to a common computer. The NXT software has lots of bugs in the myBlocks (robot subroutines). When moving them among computers, they don't always make the trip in tact. Hours were spent on Paul's myBlock when he moved from the desktop to the laptop - and the fix was not intuitive.

Team Update, 11/25/2008

2008-11-25T21:59:00.002-06:00

Project: The team has finished their project research and is meeting for a full run-through Wed., 11/26 at 11-12:00, including scenery and special effects. Andrew, Joey Nate and Paul have speaking parts and are arriving at 10:30 for a pre-run.

Robot: Monday and Tuesday we had the robot jockeys finishing missions, practicing and timing. Like last year, we'll have to cut some missions and practice a lot to get it within the 2.5 minutes.

Teamwork: Nate almost has the bio board finished. Joey started a technical presentation. This evening, Danny, Michael, Nate and Paul went to meet with the other Naperville team, "Lego Crushers". It's a group of 5 3rd and 4th grade girls. They have a front pusher implement on a tri-bot. The boys pointed out some ways to make it more reliable (exchange a slider for the caster, use 1-wheel turns) and how to easily get more points (push in the carbon ball near base, trigger the levee tester, leave the robot in the yellow area, make sure both insulation pieces touch the mat). Paul showed their technical coach how to find a line, described how to find it twice to get more accuracy and why to use wheel brakes.

As always, lots to do at the end.

Go Supernova!

Team Update

2008-11-09T13:15:00.004-06:00

We've had a few meetings since the last post, so this a catch-up.

The project is going really well. The research is finished and the boys are well into their presentation, which is a puppet show. They've built a web site, written a script for the show and have started to rehearse.

During the Teamwork part of the meeting, they are working on anything that helps the team. Bios, presentation boards, building props for the project, or doing general robot work. It's working great.

The boys have been doing extra robot work on the side after school and on weekends to get their missions finished. They are testing 2 robots and most of the missions are working. They're finding them to be more difficult than last year.

Videos will be posted as missions are completed.

Go Supernova!

Agenda, 10/30/2008

2008-10-29T22:46:00.002-05:00

Teamwork - start of the meeting:

Mrs. McCurdy would like to take a few minutes at the beginning of the meeting to go over the revised schedules with the team using Danny's chart.
Talk about what time management strategies they have employed so far as a team and as individuals, since this is something the judges will be looking for under the Roles and Responsibities section of the Teamwork/FLL Values rubric.
Have a group brainstorm about the puppet stage.
1st 1/2: Michael and Danny (team mates are in project)
2nd 1/2: Trevor, Andrew and Alex*

Project - (1st 1/2 only, Mrs. Naughton leaves at 5:00):

Joey, Paul, Nate and Andrew do a read through on the puppet show as their project work - to get our timing down.
Web site work if time.

Robot:

1st 1/2: Alex, Patrick, Trevor
2nd 1/2: Michael, Nate, Paul, Joey and Danny*

*Joey/Danny & Alex can trade if they want.

Meeting Minutes, Sunday, 10/26/2008

2008-10-29T21:38:00.007-05:00

I hope you have time to read this long post. The team has had a great week!

A big thanks to Mrs. McCurdy for being our Teamwork coach. Their primary focus is to concentrate on how they can work together better as a team, also working on other team goals needed for the tournament. Having 3 separate activities during the meeting: Project, Teamwork and Robots, allows the whole team to stay engaged without so much distraction - and it really worked great!

Teamwork:

Xander revised the miscellaneous schedule (nothing scheduled for 10/30)
Michael revised the project schedule (writing/editing is listed for 10/30)
Danny revised the mission schedule. In the new schedule, all missions will be completed and jockeys selected by the end of the 11/2 meeting. Working backwards from the tournament date, he scheduled one practice tournament (12/4), two robot jockey practices meetings (11/23 and 11/30). and five meetings (11/6, 11/13, 11/16, and 11/20) to combine missions, and have the jockeys train with coach assistance. It's rational, but not reasonable, and I think Danny understands that. He said that what he personally had learned about time management through FLL was that schedules can be revised. Beats panic!

Project:

The boys have been working on a web site to share their findings from the project. Once published, we'll add a link to this blog.
Paul and Nate agreed to have Puppet prototypes by next Sunday's meeting.
Scenery and Props need to wait until we have the Puppets settled, but we will need:
3 scene changes and 1 window change (Pierre's and Alfred's apartments will be the same except for the scene out the window)Radio (to be built out of Legos by Joey)Ghost Laptop (to be built out of Legos by Trevor)Special effect noises: music for the radio station, sound effects for ghostly movement and the heat wave Fog Machine (for our cloud formation at the end)
We will also need a puppet stage

Robot - Activity Saturday and Sunday:

Saturday was open table:

Joey and Danny completed their mission! Great work. They tried a second robot and it had some trouble, but read on.
Alex and his dad came over. Alex is the 3rd mission group in the "Mega" program, thus the robot location is not very predictable. He worked on locating his robot on the mat using sensors. He has a strategy and started programming it.
Paul worked on prototyping a tank track to replace the ramp, but decided to abandon after some testing. It was a nice design.
Michael, Andrew and Nate finished the day and made a lot of progress.
==> Andrew has made a huge discovery for the team. He had finished his mission but when he tried a 2nd robot, it did not behave the same. The first robot always drove left on a straight run, but the second one was even worse. He tried swapping wheels on one of the robots and found that it drove right! He deduced that the tires were different sizes and since then has found 2 matched sets for our robots that now enable them to drive straight. This is a very big deal, allowing us to have 2 robots that behave similarly enough to make them interchangeable among teams. They are much more predictable.
==> Michael and Nate made improvements to their mission and reliably deliver their cargo to the ice and have a good direction towards the ice drill. The bear is sometimes sleeping, but they've deferred that until after they accomplish the rest of their mission. They've got some good teamwork going.

Sunday:

Alex, Michael, Andrew & Nate arrived 1/2 hour early, so Paul and Danny joined them. It was a very productive little pre-meeting with a lot of progress for a short time.
==> Andrew finished going through the wheels for matched sets. He was very systematic.
==> Paul modified his line follower, adding parameters for sensor, line side and power. He tested it and it works nicely. It's called ELF_1 for Extended Line Follower, Version 1.
Patrick and Trevor made progress on the house mission, adding ELF_1, and got to the point of sensing the wall with the arm by sensing rotations, as suggested by Paul. They started, and Trevor finished Wednesday, a motor assist that now allows them to sense the wall without adding a touch sensor! Fantastic teamwork.
Alex added ELF_1 to his program before time ran out.

Agenda, Thursday, 10/23/2008

2008-10-22T21:40:00.002-05:00

Project is going very well. Time to pick parts for the puppet show and also decide how they're going to make the puppets.

Michael work with Mrs. Naughton on his cloud ide and how to work it in to the rest of the content.

Continue robot mission work.

Agenda, Sunday 10/4/2008

2008-10-04T22:29:00.003-05:00

We are again going with a 2 hour Sunday meeting, some kids come late, some kids leave early.
This is to minimize the distractions of kids working on robot table.

3:00 - 3:45

Alex, Paul (project)
Michael, Nate, Patrick, Andrew, Trevor (robot)

3:45 Danny Start
4:15 Trevor Finish
4:15 - 5:00

Patrick, Michael & Nate (project)
Danny, Andrew, Paul & Alex (robot)

not present at meeting: - Joey

Minutes, 9/18/2008

2008-09-20T22:04:00.002-05:00

Work for next meeting:
- Everyone write their bio text.
- Project research on the new topic of temperature extremes.
- Mr. Emge order tires for robots.

Project:
Patrick presented results of his research. The problems he found and why:
1) heat and cold waves, because they're the most deadly
2) floods - because they're the most costly
The team had a good discussion and then voted 6 to 3 to pick the problem of heat and cold extremes.
Joey, Alex and Danny worked with Mrs. Naughton to come up with questions for an expert.

Robot:
- Andrew tested the new tires and found they behaved identically to the old ones in a straight line test.
- Paul tested the line follower and it didn't work with the new sensor location.
- Trevor entered sensor data and built a new jig.
- Various other work done on missions.

Misc:
- Paul volunteered to take photos for the Bios.

Meeting Minutes, 9/14/2008

2008-09-14T23:21:00.002-05:00

Project:
Michael and Nate led a vote on the project topic. Droughts and floods were chosen and then extreme weather. The challenge project was re-read and the team realized that it's not the climate, or future climate, but rather problems due to current climate. So, extreme weather is the cause, but are drought and floods the main problems? Mrs. Naughton suggested that they do research to answer the following questions before the next meeting so that they can make informed decisions. The link below may help, but they should also explore other resources.
http://www.sws.uiuc.edu/atmos/statecli/General/Illinois-climate-narrative.pdf
1. What is the climate of IL/our area?
2. What are some of the problems we face due to our climate?

Robot Missions:
Please see the 2008 Mission Tracker in the links to the right. Each team member was able to pick their first or second choice of which of the 4 mission groups to work on based on their decision last meeting to assign 4, 2, 2 & 1 persons each. The coaches each took a team to mentor. The 1st group nominated Andrew to be the team lead.

Robot Design:
Paul, Patrick, Michael, Andrew, Danny and Nate worked on the robot design. The rest of the team was content to work on their missions and let this sub-team make the design decisions. Below are the details, but they decided to use the new design.

New arm is better but they will stiffen by triangulation.
Light sensor needs to be tested and Paul volunteered. The issue is line following, straight and 90-degree turns. They think straight lines are OK and but sharp turns may be a problem. If no sharp turns are needed, then this is OK but Paul will work out the performance.
They think the small wheels will be OK if they use a ramp to get into the research area. Paul had a prototype ramp with magnetic Lego's. Looked cool but needs some work. Paul will also continue work on a ramp.
Final issue was repeatability of straight lines with the small wheels. Andrew volunteered to test this.

Miscellaneous:

Still need display mission printouts
Need to display project challenge for reference.
Need soft copy of Alex's schedule for the web site.
Mission tracker is updated with assignments and coach mentors

Agenda, 9/14/2008

2008-09-13T16:43:00.002-05:00

Project:
Finish selecting topic and start research on it (1 week behind)

Robot:
Discuss robot design and how we finalize
Pick mission assignments and start working on them (1 week behind)

Misc:
Finish posting missions
Continue sensor characterization, get into Nate's spreadsheet
How to organize software: MyBlocks analysis (Alex), other ideas: Michael, Andrew, Paul

Meeting Minutes, 9/11/2008

2008-09-13T15:04:00.002-05:00

1. Alex presented his schedule. He will email it to Mr. Emge, it is in word format.

2. Vote for a topic for research project.
From last weeks brainstorming session, the 4 topics of choice were
-agriculture (how it changes with expected climate changes)
-water level and transportation (lake MI, canals, rivers, dredging, etc)
-Drought
-impact on any particular eco system

None of the ideas triggered much enthusiasm. Votes came in for water level and transportation.

3. Small group brainstorming
3 groups of 3.
Brainstorm ideas to for internet search topics/words.
Brainstorm ideas for who we can get to come speak/we can visit.
Goal was each group come up with 10-15 search topics, and a few ideas for people/field trips.

4. Small group breakout
4a. Paul, Danny, Trevor - Characterize light sensors. Progress made. Chart online?
4b. Michael, Nate - research topics, do the googling. They were not finding enough interesting info, but maybe have some different, cooler, ideas for project.
4c. Alex posted rules, missions next time
Alex and Mrs. Emge discussed software testing to understand
MyBlocks usage and implementation. Will try to do at home.
4d. Patrick, Andrew, Joey prepared and presented a mission tracker. (Pauls flash drive)

Agenda, 9/11/2008

2008-09-07T22:58:00.002-05:00

General:

Alex - present the schedule he prepared for this past Sunday, when we ran out of time.
Post the missions and rules, which Alex pointed out was to be performed this meeting per the schedule.

Project:

Start meeting by completing last weeks schedule item "narrow down topic" and voting on the items identified in Sunday's brain storming.
Per schedule, compile info.

Robot:

Per schedule, assign missions.
To that end:
---Joey, Patrick, Andrew to complete first pass mission tracker
---Group decides on who does what
NOTE: design review of Andrew's robot delayed until Mr. Emge's return on Sunday, 9/14

Minutes, 9/7/2008

2008-09-07T22:41:00.003-05:00

A very exciting meeting today. We had a 10 minute kickoff of the challenge, followed by 30 minutes of project brainstorming and finishing with 30 minutes of robot.

Project: Andrew came with a lot of graphs on our climate. Most of the boys had done some research and described the climate changes expected, and how it depended on the model. They came up with many problems these changes cause. Next week they vote on which of these problems to do their research project.

Robot: There were 3 proposals already thought through! They all had similar themes. Michael and Andrew also brought a robot prototype, but we didn't have time to review it. The experience of last season is really showing in the depth of thought, and breadth of consideration, including tactical, timing and difficulty of implementation.

Patrick presented a concept for combining 7 of the 18 missions in a single run.
Andrew and Michael brought a color-coded mission sequence proposal, which they presented
Joey presented an alternate mission sequence

We discussed the approach for distributing the mission work. Last year each mission was solved independently. This year they decided that they'd rather first determine the mission order and then assign teams to each robot run. The team agreed to have Joey, Patrick and Andrew do the first pass mission order for review with the group. This team agreed that they would be objective in their decisions.

Agenda, 9/7/2008

2008-09-04T21:49:00.006-05:00

CHALLENGE ANNOUNCED!
See the link to the right.

Everyone on the team to digest as much of the project and robot rules as they can before our short meeting.

Project, from schedule: brainstorm to narrow down topic and pick who does what.

Mrs. Naughton gives the following guidance:
read up on Midwest Climate Change at the following link:
http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/nationalassessment/overviewmidwest.htm
other helpful links:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/UniqueKeyLookup/SHSU5BUP43/$File/il_impct.pdf
http://www.cier.umd.edu/climateadaptation/Illinois%20Economic%20Impacts%20of%20Climate%20Change.pdf
http://www.ucsusa.org/greatlakes/glregionill_cli.html

Robot, from schedule: list of missions.
Joey and Andrew have already done a first pass. If time after project, review their work and any other brought to the meeting.

General: post the rules and missions in the lab, review Alex's schedule

Meeting Minutes, 9/4/2008

2008-09-04T21:29:00.005-05:00

We followed the agenda pretty closely, so I'll only capture the highlights. The team did a great job going through the handouts from Mrs. Naughton and had a very good discussion.

Q: Is there enough room in the project schedule for field trips or visits from experts?
A: Yes - there is enough slack.

Q:(for both schedule teams) Does the schedule assume that 1/2 time is spent on project and robot?
A: Yes

Noted that if they change the robot schedule, then the design must be locked down by 9/14. Need to add this note to the schedule. They also clarified that the schedule assumes the same approach as last year: solve all the missions, then combine/cut.

Andrew suggested each person do a mini-project that they can have fun with and present to the group. The team agreed to table that idea and consider it when they find out the actual challenge to see if they think it will work.

A schedule gap was identified and Alex volunteered to schedule the miscellaneous jobs that don't fit under project and robot headings: technical presentation, putting together other presentation material, etc.

Michael and Andrew brought in a prototype robot design that they propose for this season. We had a short design review but agreed to hold off deciding whether or not to change the design until they understand the challenge. They would also need to test the perceived advantages of the new robot to verify that it delivers. Below are the results, but I'd like to congratulate Michael and Andrew on their initiative and the group in general for their thoughtful consideration of the impact of both changing and keeping the old design.

Pros:

shorter - more maneuverable and can have larger implements in base
easier to charge
flatter wheels for more traction and less bounce
rear sliders are the same width as marks in base to make it easier to align.

Cons:

light sensor is now behind the front wheels (affects line follower algorithm)
implements and/or attachments need to be re-designed
arm motor was too tight to attach the arm (already fixed)
it might be too slow with the smaller wheels
re-designing and testing will take schedule time

Meeting Agenda, 9/4/2008

2008-09-03T23:01:00.004-05:00

General:

Come prepared with what they are interesed in doing for the team. For example, research, software, robot design, etc.

Project:

Nate and Michael present their schedule.
All - be prepared with handout answers from last meeting

Robot:

Danny and Trevor present their schedule.
Characterize sensors.
Continue work on software organization effort

8/28/2008 Meeting Minutes

2008-09-03T22:13:00.004-05:00

Last week, Mrs. McCurdy pointed out that the team's experience allows them to get a jump on the season by working on organization in advance of the the challenge announcement. We were able to set our agenda for this week based on that focus. In addition, Mrs. Naughton led a discussion on what was learned from the weather station tour and distributed a paper on climate. The team chose to read at home and answer the questions as opposed to doing it during the meeting.

Danny and Trevor came up with a robot schedule and reviewed with Mrs. Emge. Danny entered the data this week and it's posted on the blog to the right as "2008 Robot Schedule". Nice work!

Nate and Michael generated a project schedule and reviewed with Mrs. Naughton. The data will be posted once entered this week.

Patrick and Joey started attaching the mission items to the board while the coaches were busy working with the other boys.

Andrew, Paul and Alex had volunteered to work on organizing software. Andrew experimented with my-blocks to understand how they are stored and how we can be sure which version we're using. More work is ncessary to figure this out, but Andrew was diligent in his effort. The NXT software is quite confusing in this regard.

Paul and Alex helped Patrick and Joey on light sensor characterization. Last season we found that one sensor had a different response. The goal of this exercise is to determine the repeatability of the sensors with each robot for black, white and the colors available on the mat. As a reminder, the post-mortem identified repeatability of the robots as an important trait. Nate built a spreadsheet for documenting their results, which can be found in the links to the right under "Light Sensor Data". Nice job, Nate! Paul build a jig for mounting sensors that has a quick-change mount and keeps them at a fixed height from the mat.

Welcome Back, Supernova, 8/21/2008 Meeting

2008-08-25T22:04:00.005-05:00

Today's meeting was primarily a postmortem of the 2007 season. We discussed what worked and what we can improve on from last year. Below are the results and action items for which they volunteered.

Vote results:

They voted to keep the Supernova name, 5 to 3
Regional preferences:

Batavia
Palatine
Lake Zurich

Action items and assignments. The organizational stuff we can do at the next meeting since we don't yet know the project or missions, but we have enough experience to know the fundamentals of what generally needs to be done.

We need a "lawyer" at each tournament run to respectfully discuss with the judge any scoring issues. Also responsible for the mission tracker and working with the rest of the team to make tradeoffs. Needed 2 team members so there is a backup.

Joey and Patrick

Robot Run Organization: We should have a binder for the missions: robot alignment, implements, etc. Need a solution for quickly accessing programs.

Michael and Andrew

Software organization - process for keeping computers synchronized, understanding my-blocks and how they are stored. Robot download before meetings and tournaments. Integration of Andrew's program access. Includes SW part of the technical presentation and board.

Paul, Alex and Andrew (related to program access)

Project Schedule - work out the steps for completion and when they need to be complete, with enough time left at the end for practice before regional tournament. Assume 2 meetings per week starting 9/4.

Nate and Michael

Robot Schedule - work out the steps for completion and when they need to be complete, with enough time lef at the end for optimization and practice before regional tournament. Assume 2 meetings per week starting 9/4.

Danny and Trevor

Tournament tri-fold information boards. Everyone contributes but we need an owner for each.

Joey: Bios
?: Technical
?: Project

Robot Re-design and testing. Think about improvements, build and test solutions and present to the group. Finish this in the next couple weeks so that we know the robot platform, making it easier to design implements and approach a final design sooner.

Nate, Michael, Andrew, Paul and Danny

12/28 Power Lines and Wave Turbine Videos

2007-12-28T11:18:00.000-06:00

Patrick made the corn mission more reliable and Joey finished the power lines this morning. The power lines mission plants 2 trees and connects 3 properties to the power plant. With the wind turbines and dam, it's worth 50 points alone.

We also shot a new video of Nate's house solar panel mission that now throws the wave turbine into the water. Paul designed and built the new wave turbine to work this way.

12/27 Minutes

2007-12-27T21:38:00.000-06:00

We had a very productive meeting. Alex worked on the Alien Chicken. Andrew, Danny and Sam also worked on project. The whole team spent quite some time hashing through the mission order and discussing ways of reducing our time. The order was mostly agreed upon until finally Joey and Paul volunteered to decide on the final order so the rest of the team could continue on other tasks. The order now combines more missions and requires fewer implement changes. The group decided to decline to do the coal mining. We discussed methods of organizing the programs so that it doesn't take so long to sequence through them. Andrew volunteered to bring an example "super program" that is faster. A new mission tracker has been published at the link on the right.

Mrs. Naughton brought in some tri-fold display boards for the project, technical and general presentation. Each boy is to bring a bio sheet to the next meeting to put on the general board - 3 to 5 sentences and a head shot (school photo?) if they have it.

Joey, Michael, Danny, Patrick and Alex all volunteered to introduce the group for the project, including writing up the introduction. We had a secret ballot and Michael was voted in.

Mr. Emge discussed some of the problems with move blocks with turns. This was an issue with corn harvesting. By changing to single wheel turns, Patrick was able to modify his program and get a pretty repeatable mission in a short time. He came in before the meeting to accomplish this and the video is below. He is returning tomorrow to make it less sensitive to alignment in base. He also found a way to send out an oil barrel at the same time, since we must get an oil barrel to the farm to make the harvest count. This means we still get points for the corn even if we didn't get the truck sent to the farm, which was the original order.

Nate also came in before the meeting and refined the solar panel program, using a light sensor. It's pretty reliable using different robots. Paul built a wave turbine that rides on the solar panel so that it gets thrown over the house when the solar panel is installed, combining these missions.

Joey and Paul worked on power lines Wednesday morning, including planting 2 more trees. They figured out how to use the light sensor and touch sensor to put it repeatably in a really good spot. There is a little work to do on it yet and when they finish, a video will go up. It uses the same "scoop" implement as many other missions, and gets 50 points, so this is a really good accomplishment.

Below is a video of Patrick's corn harvesting mission.

12/23, Meeting minutes

2007-12-24T00:28:00.000-06:00

We're still at 10 minutes for all missions, but Nate spent some time before the meeting finishing the solar panel installation mission. It's a dead-reckoning program but works very well. Video below.

In addition, the team continued work on the project and Paul and Alex got the dam working.

Nice job, Nate!

12/22 - Uranium Mission Video

2007-12-22T21:05:00.000-06:00

Paul fine tuned the Uranium mission today using light and touch sensors.

12/20 Meeting Update

2007-12-20T21:39:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since the last post and Supernova has made tremendous progress. The project is going very well. The boys are finished with their research and are bulding the presentation book. They stayed after school today to get pictures taken for it.

T-shirts are in and will have the new logo on them - same as on the top of this page. Thanks to Nate and Patrick for the designs. The team had a secret vote to pick between them.

All robots are now built identically and the team has finished almost all the missions. Robot time during normal meetings is now spent practicing and getting the time down. Last week was the first attempt at all missions. Currently it takes about 10 minutes but they are learning the importance of proper alignement in base and quick attachment changes.

The team is going to build a notebook with the proper alignment for each mission. The implements are also going to be modified slightly to make them easier to attach - things like common peg location and making the pegs "captive" in the robot. The few missions that need program modifications are now being worked on when those team members can come over and work outside the normal meeting time.

Soon, we will be working on the design review presentation. That will be a good time for the boys to reflect on just how much they've learned and let that come through to the judges.

We will be posting a schedule for the Christmas break. There will be extra meeting times where they can come in and work in small groups to fine tune their missions and presentations.

11/1 Meeting Minutes

2007-11-02T20:04:00.000-05:00

Today we had a special guest to speak to the team about where Naperville and, therefore Highlands, gets its power. Mr. Allan Poole is the Director of Public Utilities for the City of Naperville. He shared a wealth of knowledge but a small summary is below. The boys had a lot of very good questions. At the end of the meeting, Mr. Poole distributed some light-sticks, balsa planes and whistle key chains. THANK YOU MR. POOLE FOR THE GENEROUS GIFT OF YOUR TIME AND KNOWLEDGE!

Showed a map of the electricity grid in Illinois and surrounding states and explained the various forms of energy and how they supply the grid.
Brought pictures of the different kinds of power generation plants, including wind turbine farms.
Compared/contrasted the percentage of each kind of power the US and IL consume.
Described the advantages of replacing old coal plants with new ones (more efficiency and less pollution, especially mercury).
Discussed global warming and greenhouse gasses and some of the research into sequestering CO2.
Discussed renewables and how they must become the long term solution solution, while the more efficient non-renewable plants support our intermediate needs.
Discussed ethanol and bio-diesel and how they compete for our food supply resources.
Stressed the importance of conservation in solving the energy problem.
Stressed the importance of education to meet the increasing demand for scientists and engineers needed to work on solving the energy problem

At the end of the meeting, the team discussed Michael & Andrew's robot, which they had modified since last time. There was a short discussion of steering with 4 rigid wheels and how casters follow the tangent of the circle of rotation.

Mrs. Naughton discussed the project work for next meeting. As a reminder, each team member should come up with 2 or 3 topics that they would like to work on for the project.

Regional Tournament Announced!

2007-10-30T23:16:00.000-05:00

Supernova's Regional Tournament date has been set. There are 16 teams, 4 of which will continue to the State Tournament.

January 12, 2008
Lake Forest Country Day School Regional
Lake Forest Country Day School
145 S. Green Bay Rd.
Lake Forest, IL

Doors open at 7:30 AM
Opening ceremonies at 8:00 AM
Tournament ends at approximately 1:00 PM
Located just north of West Leigh on Green Bay Rd. Use Green Bay entrance and enter at the front door. Lunch of sub sandwiches, cookies and pop will be available.

Contact: Marc Arthur, 847-615-6161, arthurm@lfcds.org

10/28 Meeting Minutes

2007-10-30T21:56:00.000-05:00

Although the team has made great progress on the missions, they have not all been giving best effort on the project. Starting this week, anyone that doesn't give best effort on the project segment of the meeting will do a second session on the project and not work on the robot missions. The coaches repeated the points breakdown to remind the team that the project is worth the same amount as the robot performance during tournament judging. The team is very interested in going to the State tournament and want to do well on all aspects. We don't expect that many members of the team will have to lose their mission time.

OK, that being said, this was an exciting meeting. Mrs. Naughton contacted Allan Poole at Naperville Utilities and he has graciously agreed to assist the team with their energy project. He will come to our Thursday, 11/1 meeting to talk to the team. We again had 1/2 time on project and 1/2 time on missions. The project effort focused on preparing questions for Mr. Poole.

As a result of last meeting, the mission goal this week was to re-design the robot. Michael and Andrew brought in a new working robot and Joey brought in an innovative "stroller steering" robot design concept. First, the team generated a list of requirements on the white board. We then spent quite a long time discussing the best way to come up with a new design. Possible ways were 1) elect 2 or 3 boys to do it, 2) draw straws, 3) break into teams 4) build test robots. At the very end, Danny articulated the following: "we should combine the best of the robots we have into one robot, leaving out the parts of each that don't work". That lead to picking 3) and using his statement as a guideline.

During each team's mission time, they first used a voting method to prioritize the requirements. Then, they critiqued each of our 4 robots (tri-bot1, tri-bot2, Joey-bot & Toennies-bot), by thinking about what was most important, and came up with a composite design. Below is a shot of the white board with the requirements. The two teams were Black (Michael, Andrew, Patrick and Paul) and Red (Joey, Sam, Alex & Danny). The circled numbers indicate the priority of the requirements for each time. The hash marks were used as each team member picked what they considered most important (voting for each requirement only once). Also shown below are the Joey-bot (RCX) and Toennies-bot (NXT). The consensus for the teams is as follows:

Black Team: Liked Toennies-bot. Paul: need to move the NXT up vertically to make room for programmable battery. All: move NXT forward and make 1" shorter to be no longer than tri-bots. Needs a light sensor. Some questions about the casters.

Red Team: Also liked Toennies-bot. Joey is anti-caster due to their tendency to steer the robot when changing directions. Mr. Emge challenged them to come up with a better caster design. Alex suggested improving implement attachment. Alex, Sam and Danny didn't like the caster design either.

General re-design: use the Toennies-bot. It has good weight distribution but needs to be shorter and the caster design needs some work. In tests it seems to have good traction. The arm motor leaves good access to the buttons and screen. Michael and Andrew will address some of these issues and bring the bot back for next week. The team wants to move to the final design as soon as possible since it impacts their programs.

Requirements Joey-bot Toennies-bot

Great work by all this week.

10/25 Meeting Minutes

2007-10-30T21:28:00.000-05:00

Mrs. Naughton returned from vacation and continued the project effort for half the team while the other half worked on their missions. They brainstormed about what specifically can be improved at Highlands and what recommendations we might make. The groups switched half way through the meeting.

Mr. Emge's engineering secret was "Don't Believe in Magic". When things don't happen like you expect, there is a reason why and you can figure it out. We discussed how we can use critical thinking, experiment and ask others to help us think it through and solve the mystery.

Mr. Emge and Michael segued directly to a repeatability problem when deploying the solar satellite. After some close observation it was determined that the robot was losing traction. Michael lowered the power level and it became more repeatable. They further analyzed the problem and found poor weight distribution.

During the meeting summary, Joey demonstrated his rack and pinion front-steer robot design concept. The team discussed the pros and cons of the two types of steering and as a group agreed that they would like to keep the differential steering mechanism of tri-bot. The robot traction problem was also discussed. Mr. Emge presented the issue with front-wheel drive vehicles and their weight transfer during acceleration. The team suggested re-designing the robot for better traction and that is the goal for the next meeting.

As we discussed the re-design, Michael had a very good question, "why did we build this robot if it doesn't work well"? The answer, that they didn't know then what they know now, really shows how far they've come in understanding what is important for their robot. The coaches are extremely proud of the progress they've made in the missions.

10/21 Meeting Minutes

2007-10-21T19:28:00.000-05:00

Today was all robots. We had some down time with some team members as they vied for robot and table time. Mr. Emge spent some time talking about simple vs complex designs with some team members to take advantage of some of the down time. Mrs. Naughton will be back for Thursday's meeting to continue the project work.

Alex tallied another 25 points by placing the hydro dam. He built a rig for pushing it out and programmed the robot to make it happen.

Michael is making progress on the solar sattelite and truck, but his design depends on an arm, and the arm used on the oil rig may change. He does have a nice claw for grabbing the truck that can be used once the main robot design is locked down. Joey was out so Andrew continued working on the oil rig, which is turning out to be challenging. Mr. Emge discussed lever arms and force direction to help him analyze problems with deploying the arm. The simple-vs-complex session also discussed the oil rig problem. He was encouraged to discuss with other team members to get ideas. Paul suggested an attached container, for example. Andrew also tried pulling the barrels out instead of pushing the arm. He is learning a lot, even if it's a bit frustrating working on one of the more difficult missions. No doubt he will succeed!

Danny built a new container for power plant power and worked with Paul to shorten the implement used on the 2nd mission set. Paul and sam worked on harvesting Uranium. They're almost there, but their mission also includes getting corn and coal, so they have a way to go.

10/18 Meeting Minutes

2007-10-19T13:50:00.000-05:00

The team worked on their missions and are getting comfortable with the robot and software. Mrs. Naughton and Patrick were out of town, so Sam paired up with Paul to work on harvesting corn and mining Uranium and Danny worked with Alex on a container for power-plant fuel. Paul and Sam use the same implement as Danny, so they decided to continue his mission without returning to base, saving time.

Joey and Andrew continued to make progress on getting oil from the oil-rig. Mr. Emge got an answer on whether or not they could lose contact with their container during the mission and the answer was "yes". Joey also brought in an RCX mock-up of a front-steer robot to show the group, but it was too fragile so he decided to put that off. Michael is now doing the solar sattelite before getting the truck, so he started working on the combined missions.

Nate had a design worked out for installing the solar panel, but found out that it violated the rules by attaching it to his implement. He worked on other ideas that do not require attachment.

At the end of the meeting, Mr. Emge introduced the "KISS" design principle: "Keep It Simple, Supernova" - make the design as simple as you can while still getting the job done. Time was almost out, so we'll continue that next time.

We also discussed the mission order and the team agreed to Sam and Paul's recommendation that Wind Turbines and Tree Planting should be combined with Corn Harvest and Uranium Mining, with the new combined missions being performed second. Joey suggested that steps 4 and 5 be swapped so that while the Solar Panel and Wave Turbine are being deployed, they can fill the fuel container for the Power Plant mission. The team agreed and the new order is published at the right.

Next meeting is Sunday, 10/21 from 3:00-4:30.

10/11, 10/14 Meeting Minutes

2007-10-19T13:33:00.000-05:00

On 10/11, Mr. Eric Militz took our team on a tour of Highlands chool and answered the audit questions generated at the 9/27 meeting. A big thanks to Mr. Militz for sharing his time with us and to Mrs. Naughton for setting it up. After this meeting, the team met back at the Emge's to discuss what they saw and work on their missions.

10/14 was our first Sunday meeting. The team concentrated on their mission work. We're now tracking our progress on the white board by points we've accomplished individually. Danny and Sam brought in our first 50 points!

Mr. Emge was out of town for both of these meetings.

10/4 Meeting Minutes

2007-10-04T22:39:00.000-05:00

We had one of our more productive meetings today. Breaking into pairs worked very well and we are beginning to see some real progress on the robot table. We took a break from the research project today but will pick up again this coming week.

Patrick's revised "Mission Tracker" is now the top link on this page. The team is continuing to evaluate this order and it will likely change again as they find more efficient ways to solve the puzzle.

Danny and Sam made some great progress on planting trees and installing wind turbines. They made a prototype of an implement, shown to the left, that is proving to be useful for other missions as well. They both spent a good amount of time testing their implement, "thinking like a robot". Paul helped with mounting to the robot and they began programming.

Joey showed some great initiative bringing a Lego building book to illustrate an idea he had about using rack and pinion instead of differential steering, as our current robots are built. The team has to figure out if this is the direction they'd like to go since it's a big change from what they have done so far. Joey did a great job getting his ideas across.

Patrick and Paul worked on design of a corn and uranium harvesting machine. Patrick was also thinking like a robot to test their ideas while Paul helped Danny and Sam. In their end-of-meeting summary they suggested changing the order so that they can dump the coal and push the truck out in the same mission. They are also considering abandoning their first design and trying Sam and Danny's implement.

Joey and Andrew worked together to bring oil barrels from the oil-rig to base. This is a challenging and critical mission since any oil in the water subtracts a lot of points. They are up for the challenge and tested Nate's oil catcher. They discussed improving Andrew's robot since the wheels have a lot of camber (angled).

Nate worked on ideas for the wave turbine and solar panel. He's planning to use the light sensor to navigate and requested to the team that one be designed into the robot and it was agreed to do this. He also plans to use a moving arm to lift the panel. Nate has a challenging pair of missions but he has great ideas and will be successful.

Alex worked on ideas for the power plant energy supply. He's still kicking around ideas but is also considering using Sam and Danny's implement. He was able to resist jumping straight to building to consider the options.

Halfway through the meeting, Mr. Emge spent 10 minutes on "Engineering Secrets". This week it was the secret to design - thinking it through before jumping to a solution saves a lot of time and testing helps to improve the ideas. Also, don't lose your programming work accidentally by saving your new work over the stuff you just got working. He showed the team a couple of complex circuit boards to show that you can accomplish some predictable results if you spend the time to do some planning on your ideas.

Mr. Emge will be out of town for the next 2 meetings.

10/4 Meeting Agenda

2007-10-04T14:35:00.000-05:00

This week will be primarily robot design and building.

Summary and Agenda

Announcements to transition to new meeting structure:

* Added a second meeting – Sundays from 3-4:30, starting 10/14
* Added 2 stations for design and building
* Removed the electrical and wheel parts – ask coaches for the box if you need it
* We’ll have a sample schedule ready before the next meeting. All projects need small goals to meet the big one. The group will look it over and change it as necessary.
* We’re buying another robot! Need to establish rules for changing the robot chassis.

New meeting structure:
* Summary of last meeting
* Agenda for this meeting
* Engineering secrets, ~ 10 minutes
* Groups of 2 (or 3) Work at 4 stations, rotating every 15 or 20 minutes
* Each group summarizes their work during this meeting ~ 10 minutes (2 minutes each)
* Remind the group of any commitments

Agenda:

Mrs. Naughton – update on project

Engineering secrets: Learning from others – experts: how to design
Requirements - what is needed, at what cost and by when?
Concept Design - what basic strategy do we have?
Detailed Design - taking the concept ideas to a working robot
- robot (mechanical) design
- smarts (software) design
Testing - Does it do what we thought?
- if not, what can we improve?
- May need to “tweak” concept or details

Group work. Since we have so much information to show this week, we will only swap from robot testing and design one time. Mrs. Emge may also have some programming information at one station instead of design.
1. Joey & Andrew table/computer
2. Michael table/computer
3. Sam & Danny design*
4. Paul & Patrick design*
5. Alex & Nate design *
*Those not designated as table/computer can use 3rd computer for programming or join Mrs. Emge learning about programming

Summary

Commitments ?

10/3 Coaches Meeting Minutes

2007-10-04T12:58:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday, Mrs. McCurdy and Mr. Emge attended a coaches' meeting on team dynamics. On Wed morning, all the Supernova coaches attended a meeting to discuss our team's meeting organization. We, the coaches welcome your input and want to keep everyone informed on what's going on.

The main results are:

Agreement to add a second meeting on Sundays at 3-4:30, starting 10/14. Mrs. McCurdy will send out an email to formally inform the parents. We can adjust the day and time if there are too many conflicts. We're hoping most of the team can make it most meetings.
Consensus that a second robot kit will help by giving us more building pieces and allow the kids to break up into more groups to design and test their missions. This will pretty much consume the rest of the money collected at the season start. We discussed using the highlands tie-die shirts for team shirts since most kids have them and there are a couple spares among the coaches families.
There are many ways to organize a group. Supernova is among the youngest and largest groups allowed by FIRST Lego League. We are lucky to have so many talented kids and we want them to be in an environment that feeds their amazing creativity. Long term, we decided on having 4 work stations going at a time. 2 for programming, 1 for robot hardware design and 1 for project work (adjust as necessary). We will rotate the kids every 15 to 20 minutes so they don't get bored. We'll try to keep groups to 2 kids, 3 as necessary. Depending on progress being made, we will adjust on the fly if it makes sense to let a group continue to focus.
Meeting structure will be:

- Summary of last meeting and state agenda for this one. Mr. Emge and Mrs. Naughton will plan the meeting agenda by email on Tuesdays before each meeting.

- 10 minutes of "engineering secrets"

- work on challenge at the stations

- last 10 minutes each group summarizes what they did during this session as practice for the technical presentation

9/27 Meeting Minutes

2007-10-04T12:45:00.000-05:00

We had a busy meeting last week.

Mr. Emge and attended the IL coaches' kickoff meeting and Mrs. McCurdy attended via conference call. We got a lot of good information about the rules and rubrics for tournaments, which was conveyed to the team. Mr. Emge also reviewed "TrialBot1" and the team discussed its design.

Mrs. Naughton worked with the kids to generate a list of questions for the Highlands contact that is helping us with our building survey. Those questions have been delivered.

Mrs. Emge is going to put up a poster of the rules, and insert the rules and Q&A into a binder for easy access without disturbing those using computers for robot or project work.

Trib-bot was back for practice and the boys worked in groups to work on designing their missions.
Patrick brought in a new mission order and discussed with Mr. Emge. It's now posted on the white board.

Action items:
Mrs. Emge: put up poster and put rules & Q&A into binder.
Mr. Emge: 1) Send window ratings information to Alex from a magazine he has. 2) Answer question: can we intentionally lose contact with an item, like a container, as long as we regain contact and return to base, or is it a stray object immediately?
Mrs. Naughton: send questions to highlands
All Coaches: coaches meeting before next Thursday.
Team: Continue their mission designs.

9/27/2007, Meeting Agenda, pics from 9/13

2007-09-26T23:30:00.000-05:00

Announcements
Strategy, continued
Training

Trialbot1 review

Design process

Organization
Schedule

"Trialbot1"

9/20/2007 Meeting Agenda

2007-09-19T23:28:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the Toennies for lending their laptop for our meetings. We now have 2 good computers for programming and 1 for project work.

Project research done by the team will be presented during the 1st half of the meeting, followed by robot design review and challenge planning. The boys will be encouraged to think like a robot for this exercise.

Mr. Emge attended the NXT training meeting and got some good design ideas and Lego tech support contacts.

Next week is the coaches' meeting.

9/13/2007 Meeting Minutes

2007-09-16T16:11:00.000-05:00

We spent the first part of the meeting discussing the challenge and how we need to solve to fundamental problems of strategy and robot design. The team broke up into 2 groups, 1 for robot design and 1 for strategy.

Robot builders: they took a departure from our test robot, "tri-bot", and built one that has a built in catcher on the front. There are some concerns with the robot as is and the boys will have to pick what is good about it, learn from its shortcomings, and come up with a better one. Some concerns are traction, size, sturdiness and turning radius.

The strategists had a hard time focusing on the task at hand, partly due to the size of the group, but they did come up with some good ideas. The coaches' homework this week is to think about how we can better keep focus on a group this large. One idea was to get a second robot kit. We have enough money to buy it from what has been collected, but then we may be short for t-shirts and misc. expenses later.

Homework for the group:

Mrs. Naughton passed out assignments for the project. Each member has a topic for doing some research and reporting back to the group.
Mr. Emge asked each member to think about how they would meet the challenge. What order would they perform the tasks and what sort of robot would they need? One idea is to picture yourself as the robot. You have wheels and attachment(s). You are a thinking robot but can only see with sensors and move with the motors- how do you meet the challenge?

See you all Thursday

2007 Challenge Announced!

2007-09-05T22:52:00.000-05:00

The challenge link has been added to the right. Tomorrow's meeting will concentrate on the project first and the robot challenge second. We will keep this priority until the project is mostly complete, working on robot challenge strategy, robot building ideas and a line following algorithm in parallel.

Parents - please send in your consent forms. Copies were sent home and copies are available at the link to the right.

We've requested January regional tournaments. Assigned dates will be announced on 10/30.

Congratulations Alex!

2007-08-27T22:29:00.000-05:00

Alex won the cub scouts Rain Gutter Regatta this past Sunday. Also competing from Supernova were Patrick, Paul and Danny. More pictures can be found at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dgemge/RainGutterRegattaPack662007

Meeting Minutes, 8/23/2007

2007-08-24T00:05:00.000-05:00

The meeting flew by today. The team tried to put together the puzzle pieces on the map but we decided to defer that to work on some challenges.

The team populated the table with the challenge pieces that they built during the last two meetings. We discussed what we might need to do for the challenge and some strategy.

Paul was modifying the robot for moving uranium and corn.
Joey was working with Paul to also deploy the satellite solar panel with the same robot.
Paul, Nate and Alex were programming the robot to move corn.
Michael and Joey were programming it for the satellite.
Danny, Patrick and Andrew were programming it to move uranium.

With only 1 robot, Joey and Michael had some down time and went through a hands-on discussion of gear types and ratios.

Meeting Agenda, 8/23/2007

2007-08-22T23:08:00.000-05:00

Populate the table with challenge assemblies.
Discuss what the challenge might be based on the mat and pieces.
Put together the power puzzle.
3 teams working on programming a mini challenge, learning about gears and discussing how the challenge is judged. We'd like to have some working robots to show on Saturday.
"Homework:" Most teams have matching T-shirts with their name and logo. What should Supernova's logo be?