Blog | Black Thunder

We can now finish gyro boy as we are on top of all our other work. FLL As gyro boy is nearly finished we can begin work on other things such as reliability and accuracy by using micro python add-on to  visual studio to code. The stacks are now coded and and ready to go. We also have a Gyro boy works as there gyro tucked under in between the two motors that can help the robot balance on two wheels. It also has a cute face. Sumo Stupidly low velocity won by 16 points as they played several more matches then the other teams. The teams are also having to restart their robots as we need the parts for fll nationals so they will begin after Christmas.  Hopefully their robots will be much better.

Re-coding FLL Over the weekend most of the bot code was deleted and then coded in python, this allows us to improve acceleration, deceleration, turning and also how controlled the runs are. The rest of the code such as the swing and elevator which we abandoned half-way through the regional competition still needs to be translated into python code. Gyro-boy is being vastly improved to show-off in nationals, we are hoping we can wow the judges through this small project and to also because when competition is high, Black Thunder are at their prime. SUMO Competiton The competitors are making general repairs in the first half of the session then will be participating in battles for the second half. The competitors have formed a close bond and if we compare them from when they started and when they are now, its a vast improvement in their ability to think outside the box think of innovative ways to solve problem caused by there improvements.

Positive changes  FLL After an inspiring win at the FLL regionals at The American School in London, we are back to changing code in EV3 and running through mission models, however this will be short-lived as one of our expert coders is going to take the bot, mission-models and mat home, during the holidays and recode the entire bot in micro python; a more reliable and efficient coding language. This will give us a better success rate and improve our chances in the Nationals greatly.  SUMO Competition Today, the SUMO competitors have been making small adjustments to their robots perfecting them. One team has made a new attachment for their medium motor and other teams have been making structural and other changes to their bot. On a more exciting note, the SUMO competitors have been started to be introduced to the FLL City Shaper mat and are thinking about how successfully their robots will complete the missions and whether minor or major changes are needed to make the...

Immediate Responses FLL The first Wednesday back was very effective, we practised some more, did some more coding and improved our score to reach 300 every time. We focused on the missions we had already done in the regional competition and memorised the placings. Next we focused on the missions that we bailed on but could be able to do in the same run as other missions, such as the building demolishing and the elevator along with the swing. They are not guaranteed points yet but soon will be as more tests are done and the code is improved. This week also we switched from block EV3 coding to the Micro-Python coding for EV3, this made our coding process very efficient as all members of the Black Thunder team are good in Python. We also restarted the gyro-bot project to show off in the nationals. SUMO Competition Today was a chill session for the SUMO competitors, to cool down from the hectic battles that took place in the previous weeks. They were allowed to do one of thr...

Competition Day Yesterday eight of us went to the FFL regional competition in The American School In London, there were many teams, half of them from that very school. Our first match at 9:55 went horribly wrong as we had some wrong information that we could touch the bot in the placing area as we thought it was a also part of base. Through this we lost 60 points putting us in 6th place. Immediately after the first match we had our core values presentation, in which we were split in two, one part had to make an animal while the other a habitat for that animal. The two teams were allowed to communicate but cold not see what the other was making. This in its core idea was a team building exercise. At 10:55 we had our second match in which we improved our score by 25 putting us in 4th place. Next we had our robot design segment in which we had to present our bot and why we had made it as we did, the two judges drilled us looking at the functionality of our code and efficiency of our ...

Project Presentation FLL We were all sent our lines for the project presentation, and had to memorise them. This session we had a practise presentation to prep ourselves for the real thing. Each of us had to something to say for each slide, about each aspect of the project and about the process. It was very successful but a few minor tweaks and a re-run and we had almost nailed it. SUMO Competition The SUMO competitors were in for a treat today as they had very little work to do, all they had to was sit down and watch our presentation about the project, they had time to ask a few questions which greatly improved the power point such as why did we choose to use what we did use. This test run boosted our morale and improved the team's confidence. After the presentation, the competitors could do general repairs and modifications for the battles on Monday.

3 More Sessions To Go! FLL The team is making the final tweaks to the robot. Like lowering the linear actuator and making the robot wider for the bridge to lift up the flags. We are also making preparations for all the presentations at the regionals in north London. The robot design summary is finished and the core values is finished. We are now ready to present it to the judges at the regionals. We have also counted the amount of points we could receive if everything went to plan and the big number is 200 points.  SUMO COMPETITION The teams have been able to organise more friendly battles by themselves with their new and improved robots. One teams pusher is very good as it has a ton of torque. The robot has a lot of shielding and it barely moves as it has too much torque it can't move. 

Major Improvements FLL With one and a half weeks left till FLL on the 8th December, this week- today- we are starting to make the positioning grid for our robot to put on the City Shaper Mat. We also continue to run testing of code and we are running a systematic improvement system on where to position our robot on the base area on the City Shaper Mat. We have also created subroutine (function) to use in other areas of our code. The function allows the linear actuator in the attachment for the My Blocks to move up and down. SUMO The competitors have been making repairs and changing different aspects of their bots since their robots, since some teams had a hard time while trying to fight and difficulty in manoeuvring their bots during SUMO fighting rounds.Some teams have added pointless attachments, but others have completely changed their mainframe structure and exoskeleton around the bot and one team had begun to reinforce their medium motor attachment; a pusher. The teams...

2 Weeks Left! FLL The attachment used for the the crane is also going to be used for the house, the swing and the equilibrium thing. Filing in a total of 55 more points, 20 from the swing, 20 from the equilibrium thing and 15 from the house  as the attachment can one take away 3 legs with the house still standing.  SUMO Competition The teams had a lesson on gears and what gearbox to use for what outcome. For example, if the motor is connected to a small gear which connects to a bigger gear, there will be less speed but more power and vice versa. The first match today was between Ultra-Destroyers and Electro-Killers. Following Wednesday's improvements and blank slates the robots were firing to fight again.

 Project Progress Sida has been refining his parking bot app ready to be released on the google play store soon. He has also been debugging the code. We have also added interchangeable separable ends on the linear actuator lift system for lifting the house on mission nine. Sumo The teams have been making more upgrades as their are no battles on Wednesday. One team has started adding suspension to their tank tracks.  They are also upgrading their weapons, Some teams are even restarting their robots as the have found out that they have a lot of weaknesses     

Progress! FLL The team improved the design for the lifting attachment of the robot, we will have 2 of the same attachment but on one the two ends of the attachment are detached so can move on their own. This allows us to do the crane task very quickly as we no longer have to re position the robot to flip different switches. We have been able to attach a board onto the same attachment to serve as a placing attachment for the bat on the tree, the drone and the house demolish task. SUMO Competition After the repairs made on Friday, the teams were ready to fight once again, new match ups were made and this time were on a time based system so that each match was at most 6 minutes long.  Every robot fought at least once today and points were allocated to each team,3 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. The overall winner for today was team Annihilator.

Stumped! FLL The lift attachment for the FLL bot was a bit buggy in the code. When the bot was moving, the attachment would move up and down. The team crowded around one computer to sort out the code but after several minutes spent puzzling over the code, the attachment bug was fixed and worked almost perfectly - with the occasional odd disalignment or two.  SUMO Competition The competitors are making much needed general repairs to their robot, as well as rethinking key components of robot design after the first few rounds. One team has taken out their wheels and added tracks, prioritising stability over speed . This allowed their bot to be lower to the ground and therefore less susceptible to flippers. One other team has added three claws to the front of the bot - a flashy weapon, but whose effectiveness remains to be seen. A member of the FLL team was meant to give a presentation to the year 7 and 8 competitors but no-one had made a presentation, so quickly one person ma...

FLL We have been making attachments for lifting tasks using gears and medium motors. We have also been improving our runs which involve stacking the mission models. We have also been coding the lifting mechanism to make it more efficient, along with improving other pieces of code and attachments. SUMO In Sumo this week, we have started real battles and so far there are a few who need to work on their robot, but a few who are showing everyone who the winner is. 'Stupidly Low Velocity and 'Ultra-Destroyers' are looking to be the most successful, but some teams are yet to play. On Friday we will continue the competition and will see what happens next.

Revving to go FLL SUMO Competition The teams are getting ready to battle once again and after changing tyres, making spare weapons will be ready to fight once again. From today a router for the SUMO teams will be set up to make the sessions more orderly and less hectic. Every Friday will be a lesson from one of the FFL team, Wednesday will be for their weapons and other attachments while on Mondays they will be left on their own to do their own thing.

Crash-Testing  FLL Starting to do the runs and find out the most effective code for those runs along with the minor adjustments needed to perfect the bot. The code for the runs has been being made since week 5 and is finally ready to be tested.  SUMO Competition The SUMO bots are set to challenge each other again but for real this time. This news has hyped up every competitor who are desperately finishing of their bots to be ready to re battle others. There had been a clear winner in previous battles but now that the other teams have seen how it is, they might have found a strategy to beat the ULTRA DESTROYER.

The project slideshow.  Sida has been typing up the presentation on Parking Bot, an app that runs on your phone and can detect parking spaces by utilising AI and machine learning. A future improvement could be being able to read signs and tell what types of parking spaces their are for example disabled and permit spaces. Sida has been training  parking bot with 12000 pictures which took over 1 day. SUMO The teams have been finishing their robots in preparation for their upcoming bots for the rest of the term. They have also been changing their robots e.g the way they geared the robot. Some teams have been very innovative in their ideas. Many teams have not been participating in sumo because their robots have had to been rebuilt.

More Coding FLL Today, coding is being finished for motor control and we are testing the code for the missions as we go through. Also, more attachments are being made and completed ready for future missions that we are yet to code. On top of this, We are progressing our project idea and are looking to send it to some professionals for feedback SUMO Competition  As the teams prepare for their last week before half-term and the beginning of the tournament, the pressure is definitely building as more and more teams get have friendly battles to test their bot. The final practices begins with each team ready to take on the other.

Refining the Work So Far FLL Today we have been refining motor control and debugging our code. By using trace tables which is using an algorithm to place variables in columns. We have also been creating some of the simpler attachments for other tasks in the robot game, so they out of the way for when we start on the more complex ones. SUMO competition More teams have started to compete in their own friendly battles. Finding their weaknesses and improving them. Some teams have been finding out how their contact points respond to the board they are competing on.

Testing the Runs FLL Today we were continuing on coding the first run we are going to complete in the robot game. They have been doing tests repeatedly on the new board! and sing the models from the FLL. WE have also been working on more attachments to complete some of the other challenges around the board.  SUMO Competition  The year sevens and eights have been continuing to work on their robots, and a 30cm cube is being fabricated to test the 30 by 30 by 30 cm limit for the size of their robots. Some of them have had to adapt their weapons to compensate for this limit, and others recreate their entire robot. We also had some more friendly battles, with the Ultra-Destroyers winning every one!

The Map Arrived! FFL The map arrived and the team has been preparing it along with testing the robot to see if we could manoeuvre properly around the map. Everyone was surprised to see that this year's map was much smaller in length than last year's so we had to change the bot drastically. The team was then split up, into sub teams making different buildings for the map. SUMO Competition All the teams in the SUMO competition are working by themselves improving the manoeuvrability of their bots to allow for quick evasion tactics where one bot may move out of the way of another just in time that the other bot has no time to stop and runs out of the designated area. Some teams are going for a tactic to make their robots as heavy as possible to make sure no other robot can push or pull them out of the ring. Two teams thought they were ready and started battling, it was a heated friendly match that ended with a bang.....both teams have learned what to improve and what to kee...

The Mission Models Arrived! Building the models The mission models finally arrived after 5 weeks of long waiting. We started building them straight away, keen to get our hands on the finished products. We also have been testing our first attachment for mission 12 with the finished pieces! SUMO Competition The year seven and eight teams are continuing to refine their robots each week, and the official competitions will commence after half term. In the mean time, they are having weekly lessons from the more experienced members of the club to help them improve their robots and designs.

Trial and Error FLL The team has made some of the buildings used in the final competition to test one of the attachments made last week. The team has already made one change to the attachment and where it goes. Moving it from the front of the robot to the back will us to put an active attachment to the front allowing for a more efficient run. SUMO Competition The many teams in the competition have been left to their own business and to use trial and error to improve their bot designs. This will allow them to independently learn and build on their knowledge about their robots. Most of them have started to test their robots to see what works and doesn't work.

Rotation to Linear Action FLL The FLL team continued to work on making the attachments and also making a 'yellow box' - a box full of the yellow pieces they found to make it easier to make the robot fit our colour scheme, all the while trying to make it practical. SUMO Competition The school is hosting Chinese exchange students today and for the next week. Some of them came to our robotics club and are learning something new; actually everyone is learning something new. Sida gave a presentation of how to use their large and medium motors to convert the circular motion into linear action. The whole classroom was engaged, including the Chinese students.

Richard Jacklin Lecture Both the FLL team and the SUMO competition teams were sat down in the lecture theatre to listen to a presentation from a man named Richard Jacklin. He is the Head of Sales at Vialite Europe and a pioneer in the robot wars industry. He often competes in a competition known as extreme robots, which is a travelling competition that travels throughout England hosting shows which anyone with a working bot can join in. He had made a robot called Bump-n-Grind; everyone enjoyed his presentation and also learned how to better use their attachments on their bots - either to cause more damage or be more efficient in their usage. After the presentation, Mr Jacklin allowed some keen people to drive his robot - which was lots of fun!

Sensor Types And Their Uses Colour-Coordinated Attachments The team has started working on attachments for missions 11 & 12, which are on run 1 (which they decided last week). They are thinking of the colours for the attachments for all the runs. We also added a colour sensor to our robot for last year's FLL, so that it would be quicker to change to different coded runs. They have also been brainstorming ideas for both robot design and the project. Sumo Improvement Ideas Some of the SUMO teams have had ideas to improve their robots - like how to gear their wheels; some of the groups are now trying to gear their robots for torque, which is pushing force, and can be achieved by putting a small gear on the motor and a big gear on the wheel. This creates torque because there is less rotation on the small gear, compared to a lot of rotation on the wheel - which then results in a pushing force called torque. 

Attachments FLL The FLL group is using the map to plan the routes for the competition. Using last time's data the group has worked out an efficient way to achieve points easily but achieve maximum of points each run. The strategic runs will let us finish the missions that need the same attachments on the same run, as well as getting a good number of points in the time frame. SUMO Competition The lesson the competitors of the SUMO competition are learning this week is about attachments. They learned how to optimise the use of their medium motor to amplify their attacks and maybe speed or agility. This is crucial, as in the competition the robots have to try and push the others out of the area; a strategy is to play cat and mouse until the other bot accidentally goes out of the area. For this to be achieved, speed and agility are key.

Map and attack Figuring out the missions - FLL The FLL group is continuing to figure out which missions are most efficient for number of points as to finalise the attachments to the robot. SUMO competition Most teams in the competition are working on their weapon attachments. One is a drill that will spin and another is a spinning claw. The weapons will form major parts of their robots; they will be the things that allow them to get points in the competition at the end of December.

Lightning Lego Recolouring the Robot - FLL Today, Harry recoloured the robot to fit the colour theme of our team; black and yellow. Dan and Rishab were looking at the map for the competition, trying to figure the most efficient uses of attachments to the robots for the best amount of points. We made a list of the tasks needing to be performed and ordered them by the amount of points each one is worth. Through this they will work out what attachments to use and in what order to do the tasks. SUMO Competition The SUMO competition today focused on the structural integrity of the robot; each team had 10 minutes to make the strongest structure they could. One team is taking an approach that makes a cage of triangles around the robot. A side task the year 7s and 8s are involving themselves in is making a robot with caterpillar wheels using instructions from the Lego mindstorms website.

Introduction to Robotics Club New FLL Team As today was the first meeting back after the school holidays, we introduced the younger years to robotics club, and to the First Lego League. We have almost completely re-vamped our Team, with six new members. we have explained what the FLL is, and the different sections we have to complete for it; Robot game, Project, Core values and Robot design. SUMO Competition The rest of the members (mostly year seven and eights) of robotics club are competing in a SUMO competition using EV3 kits that the club has from previous years of FLL. The year sevens and eights arranged themselves in teams of 6 to 8. After the FLL has finished, we will be running an FLL re-run for them. This will include building and coding robots to do this year's FLL tasks.