Meeting Minutes, 9/14/2008

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