Blog | Black Thunder

Internationals Suspended Unfortunately, the news came in that this First season has been suspended due to the Corona virus outbreak and therefore none of the International events will happen for now. Even then, the UK has banned all international school trips in precaution of the virus. Though this means that we probably won't be going to internationals, we will continue to finish NOVA; our new Robot. We are also working on building a Rubiks cube solving robot for a fun, side project.. We will continue to update the situation as to whether this First season will stay suspended.

NOVA in Progress Building Again, today we focused mostly on building, as building the new bot (called Nova) is our highest priority. We have begun to connect the motors to the brick using wires, so that we can build around the base structure of the robot, without having to worry about fitting in the wires afterwards. This will make building our robot more time efficient, due to the fact that NOVA will be ready to test code as soon as possible. Also, using feedback from Nationals, we are taking inspiration to make our bot from the internet and including elements of different robots, making sure it is an original, but still taking and expanding on what we have learned. Core Values Today, we all displayed our core value of Inclusion, where all of us were collaborating and working together, to maximise productivity. This led to some people building or assembling parts onto NOVA, building parts separately and getting the pieces themselves. Due to this, we also did one of the most...

Core Values For Core Values, we had to do a task and answer questions. We entered the judging area with our impressive banners and begun with an initial introduction. We then did the task which was to make the tallest free-standing structure possible with paper and paper clips. We split into different roles, such as leader, time keeper and builder. We then folded each of our pieces of paper in to triangular prisms and solidified them with paper clips. We then stacked them horizontally, 2 per layer, in a cross. Using this technique, we manged to make a rather tall and definitely strong structure out of paper. Finally, we answered some questions and were on our way.

Robot Design Robot design went extremely well for us as we ended up winning overall! We first began with a physical presentation of our bot, our attachments and our code and answered all questions the judges asked. We went through all the specifications of our bot such as our sensors and gearing system. We also showed them our attachments and a sample of our commented code. We also gave them our Pseudocode document, which said exactly what our code did and Robot Design Executive Summary, with all details of our bot. Project Parking Bot was our project; it is an app available on the Google Play Store that uses a convolution neural network to identify parking spaces. We presented our Project to judges and gave a working example of the app. We also explained how Parking Bot and convolution neural networks work. We finally gave the judges a document explaining parking bot in further detail.

Robot Game We scored 120, 240 and 210 in each of our Robot Games respectively. For each of our games, we had an order, for what we were aiming for; first we would go on a run to the bottom right area of the mat using line-following, using the the linear actuator attachment. We then would make a turn and align our bot with the Safety Factor mission and knock down the 2 beams on the right, making sure the structure would not fall and rest on 4 beams. We then reverse, turn and drive straight, releasing the swing. After that, we would turn on the spot, and knock the safety factor to the left, resting it on the 2 beams on the left. We then would turn and reverse into Traffic Jam, lifting it, and return home. In this run, we aim to knock 4 beams down, release the swing and raise the traffic jam. In our second run, we would go to the top right area, using the scaffolding attachment and fixed arm with an 8-tall tower of beige blocks with an upgrade. In our next final 3 runs, we would use th...

Nationals - Robot Design 1st Place! Yesterday, on the 22/2/2020, Black Thunder went to compete in the National Championship for England and Wales, at the University of the West of England. When the 9 of us, along with 4 mentors and coaches, arrived, we unloaded our minibus and headed to the pits. We then attended the opening ceremony and a member of our team proudly carried out banner proclaiming us to be the Champions of the North London Regional. The first event in our timetable was our first Robot Game at 10'o'clock and though we went in with high hopes, we only scored 120 points. This was disappointing, but we still had more events to compete for and had more opportunities to improve our robot score.  Next, we had our Innovation Project, which was the Parking Bot app (available on the Google Play Store). Our presentation went quite well and we received some feedback that would come in very useful for internationals. Following that, we had our second robot game, in whic...

Nationals are near... FLL Feels like we've been here before! Once again, the FLL team is running their project past the FLL rerunners. Some key points of improvement were that we talk too fast, talk too quietly and need to clarify some points. Parking Bot also decided to act up mid presentation, creating some phantom car parking spaces on the classroom floor. With the project presently done, we swiftly moved on to the Robot Game - with the clock furiously counting down, we raced to finally implement our innovative colour sensing system - essentially color-coding our attachments so that when we use them, the colour sensors detect which attachment is being used and run the appropriate mission - saving us valuable time! Easier said than done however, as several of our mainstay challenges such as Crane and Beams also decided to act up - it looks like it'll be a close one... again. FLL Rerun Once again, the rerunners were working on their bots after they witnessed Parki...

Bridge FLL In Today's, session we have been mainly testing our code for our final mission; the bridge. Getting our robot up the bridge and staying there will give us a good amount of points and will be a great way to finish of our runs. To do this, we are using our excellent line-following code till a junction, make a turn and racing up the bridge. This will greatly advantage us. We have also been making plans for a team meet-up during half-term, so that we are fresh for nationals on the Saturday. We are going in very confident and have a target of achieving over 400 points. FLL- Rerun Today, the Competitors continued to improve their bots, to better suit the missions. Changing the size of their bot is of paramount importance, as if it is too big, it might not be able to complete some missions such as swing (Mission 7), and if it is too heavy, the bot might not be able the make the climb up the bridge. They have also been making the attachments they require for doing each ...

Run Throughs Begin FLL Today, we started to test other missions such as Design and Build, but in different areas of the mat. We have also improved beams significantly and are able to get it working. We have also begun to run through all the missions in order to get a better understanding of our time efficiency and what we can speed up or even slow down. FLL- Rerun Today, the competitors have been continuing to construct their bots to better suit them for the FLL Rerun. One team as added a series of attachment racks to be able to add more attachments and make adding and removing them easier. Also, a team is making their bot's exoskeleton stronger and more accessible so it can support the biggest or heaviest attachments.

 Hoodies! FLL The Black Thunder hoodies finally arrived today at lunch and were handed out. Since regionals we have refined our presentation, made it easier to understand as one of the judges had given us feedback that only one of them understood our process of building the app. The reason she understood it was because she had worked with the YOLO neural network before but the other judge had not. We have made sure the presentation is understandable by presenting it to a random group of students from the school and 8/10 said they understood the process. I think that armed with our code and project we have a chance of winning nationals.

Nationals Registration! FLL In today’s session we have been filling out the registration form for the national competition on Saturday 22nd February. We have included details like the name of our robot (it’s called Eric), our highest robot game score, our most successful mission, a paragraph about our project and some interesting facts about the team. The team has also been working on some of the final code for mission 9, testing it out a few more times before we have full run through on Monday. FLL - Rerun Today the year sevens and eights have been continuing to build and improve their FLL robots. Some of them have started work on the gearing and wheals mechanisms, to ensure optimal ranges of movement around the board. One team has already nearly completed their robot, and is now working on the later stages of development, such as how the attachments are going to fit on and be used.

Mission 9 Perfection FLL The FLL team has been perfecting mission 9: safety factor to be ready for tonight. We are still attempting to put the prongs of the linear actuator in the top windows of the building. We have been finding that MicroPython still allows the robot to drift. However, we have also discovered that dust and dirt on the wheals and board can cause the robot to drift off coarse. A cog for the front attachments has worn through the cable for the colour sensor, which means the robot cannot follow the black line that runs from one side to the other side on the mat. We are going to have to change the cable as soon as possible to rectify this. FLL - Rerun The FLL rerun teams are still perfecting their robots using the spare pieces. The robots have strategically placed their mix of  4 sensors on their robots. Most teams have made a team decision on what types of motors they are going to use. They have ruled out the possibility of using a gyro as they think i...

Beaming Beams FLL The FLL team have made a breakthrough, we realised that the problem we were encountering was that the bot was going too fast into the holes of the house and therefore lost accuracy, but by using our previously-made acceleration and deceleration code in unison we can better control the velocity of the bot. The next problem is that we can only knock down four out of the six beams while keeping the house stable on top of them. This problem does not affect us as much, as we can make up those points in the stacks.  FLL - Rerun The post SUMO competitors have been taught, in a lesson by two of our FFL team members. They have been tasked to finally create their bots to tackle the mission models they made attachments for the previous sessions. They will be able to test out their code on the map later but fro now they have to imagine going around the map and doing missions.

More Code Refining FLL The FLL team has been refining the code for Mission 9, to get 65 points on top of our goal for 400 points. The code is nearly finished for mission 9 it will be tested to see how many times out of 10 it will work, so we can see if any further changes are required. We are also finishing our robot design executive summary, ready for the nationals in 24 days time. The robot is now the best we think it can be. FLL - Rerun The FLL rerun teams are upgrading their robots so they can complete the maximum amount of tasks to win the competition. Some teams are adding complex gearing for their attachments, they are making it easy to add on their attachments. Some attachments are shaping up well and the teams are making progress.

Developing safety factor FLL Today we have been perfecting mission no. 9 which is Safety factor, by getting the prongs (which is an attachment for the linear actuator) into the building's windows. We are attempting to complete the woman's swing in the same run. We currently working on beams extremely as we need to lift the building, flatten the 6 beams and lower the building onto the lowered beams.  FLL - Rerun The teams are rebuilding their robots, knowing what they need to do to optimise it for the FLL Rerun. Some teams are making a small compact robot so that when it turns it won't hit any tasks and lose them points. They are also making it easier to attach and detach their attachments. This is essential as changing attachments is important to be able to complete as many missions as possible.

REFINING FLL CODE FLL We have mostly been coding and testing today for our combo run for Missions 8 (Elevator) and Mission 12 (Design and Build) and have managed to get it working to perfect it. We also realised as we were testing that the surface under the mission models and mat, had a small bump, which seemed to hindering our progress, but we soon solved that issue. Aside from that we also tested Missions 2 (Crane). FLL Rerun Today, the young competitors were being taught the invaluable skills by two veterans (using a PowerPoint) in coding and the making of their robot. Firstly, they were taught how to use light and colour sensors. This could be used for line following which could help them in reaching a mission accurately and help with overall efficiency and help them get points. They were also taught how to gear there wheel and motor system to maximise rotations per second. This will contribute to time management due to excellent speed and effectiveness of runs....

We are now continuing coding. FLL  The coding team is now coding the robot as we are trying to combat robot drift by monitoring the rotation distance of both motors and seeing if they are equal; the drift immensely affected the robot's performance. We are continuing work on Missions 9 (Elevator) to perfect it and get it completed with Mission 12 (Design and Build) in the multi-mission run. This will give us 80 points if all the objectives, balancing the elevator and getting a fully balanced 8-stack of beige blocks, are completed. FLL rerun  The FLL rerun teams are now coding functions to the buttons on the front of the ev3 brick. Sida  also gave a presentation on advanced coding e.g loops functions, mathematical operations and also switches.Using this they will be able to complete more tasks and gain more points. 

WORKING ON PROJECT FLL Today, we mainly focused on Project and improving the aesthetic appearance of the Parking Bot app by using Google's material design, which is a design format. We are doing this as most people complained about the design format and people would be more comfortable with Google's design as they use it on lots of different apps; Google maps, etc. FLL Rerun Today, the competitors continued with their task of making their bot turn in circles. This manoeuvre could help them a lot in the missions. Some of the coders finished making their code and continued to developing the structure their bot physically and on LEGO DIGITAL DESIGNER. They will soon have more lessons on how to code successfully in EV3-G and will then be able to start to code for the missions.

5 Weeks till Nationals FLL Today, we have been working on a combo run including Missions 8 (Elevator) and 12 (Design and Build). We are aiming to balance and 8-stack of beige blocks (colour matching) with an upgrade and also to balance the elevator. We are working on positioning of the robot and the making sure the robot is turning correctly turning, to make sure we get the most points.  FLL Rerun The Competitors are continuing to expand their coding knowledge as they are learning, today, to code their bots to turn around in circles. A circle on the spot, a circle around a wheel and a circle around a fixed point (away from their bot). A lot of groups are also changing the structure of their bots (as some teams had slow and tank like robots to have maximum success in the SUMO Competition) to have quicker and more efficient robots in order top complete more missions.

Experimenting With New Attachments FLL Today, we have been making minor changes to attachments by adjusting them to maximise efficiency. We have also been adjusting code for the better to do 2 missions in one run. This will help us make more points and do more missions due effective time management (we only get 2:30 to do as many missions as we can). We have also made the code for mission 9 (Safety Factor) better by being able to insert prongs into the windows of the small structure that needs to be lowered. FLL Rerun Today, the competitors were introduced basics of the coding language (EV3-G) and were given a presentation about it and then began to explore the IDE (Integrated Design Environment) by making code. They were also talked about large and medium motors and also how to tank turn and steering. They then began to code their robot to turn around in circles and in squares. Using this code, they will soon be able develop it and make their robot do the required missions....