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...

NOVA has been born... Eric has drifted one time too many. We have named our new robot NOVA, as we thought it was about time that the team became more inclusive. While we pondered about where to place the gyro - more accurately, placing sensors in random positions and shaking the robot violently till the sensors didn't fall off, progress on our secret weapon continued - if all goes well and NOVA lives up to expectations, our disappointing Robot Game at Nationals should be long in our past. Our Bridge also received some much-needed TLC - we found that it helps when your missions are actually fully built. Heartbreak The Wall has fallen. As NOVA continues to grow and gain weight, our once-to-be secret weapon has been discarded in favour of a simpler, easier to implement solution built into NOVA. Needless to say, we're all hurting. Now the Wall lies crumbling, irrelevant, obsolete. Some of us will get over our loss today, and perhaps NOVA will be far better than the...

Reconsidering our run plan. FLL We are reconsidering our run plan as we don't think it is as effective as it could be as we aren't scoring enough points. We wan't to do short runs that score a lot points for us and that will work consistently so that if we don't complete a run we won't have wasted a lot of time. The runs are becoming shorter  so we get more runs in our two and a half minutes. We are also modifying our linear actuator so that it not just moves vertically it also moves laterally this means we can complete the missions that use the linear actuator more easily.This is because the robot doesn't need to tun it just moves the attachment sideways. We are also designing a funnel for the blue block that comes off the crane. So that we get 50 points more.    

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...

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 ...

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...

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....

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.

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 ...

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...

 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     

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.

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.

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.

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.