Blog | Black Thunder

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!