Blog | Black Thunder

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...

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.

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....

New Year's Greetings! FLL Nationals After a long break (with one one meet up) the team was back together and was ready to resume coding and building.We worked on missions and one of our coders was attempting to make a cubic equation in order to calculate turning values after line following for mission 9 (Safety factor). Also, we have worked on mission 12 (Design and Build) and now have increased our height of blocks to make the maximum possible height of stacks we can. FLL Rerun Shortly before the holidays, the participants were introduced to the FLL map and mission models; in preparation for the rerun that they would be doing. Today, they were showed our robot that we use in FLL and had a chance to look and take ideas from it. They also had a more detailed rundown of the mat and mission models with also some very successful examples of missions being done. 

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 ...

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 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...

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.

Deadline for Robots Today the year sevens and eights have been given the deadline for the completion of their Robots. They have been given 3 weeks, starting from today, to finish completing building their bots. This date has had to be delayed as some of the teams have missed some weeks so they are behind on the building of their robots. Missions There is now a new plan for what missions they will be completing. Each team will be creating their own missions based on current and previous missions from the FLL website: https://www.first-lego-league.org/en/season/robot-game/missions.html This is to help develop creativity skills in the younger students at school.

FLL The Project Today we made a start on the project. They have been researching about different apps to help counter isolation and pass time. They have also hypothesized different techniques that let them see family and friend back home by using VR or AR technology. Mission Attachments The building team have been theorizing attachments for the robot so that it can complete several of the different challenges successfully. They have also started to create and refine these attachments so the work to maximum efficiency.  Some of the team have also started to write the code for these attachments, they will finish this and start testing it next week.  Robotics club competition All of the year 7 and 8 teams have been given an EV3 Brick and a battery. They were using these to test their code, if any changes needed to be made they will most likely make the necessary changes next week. Most of the groups have almost finished their robots and some have started on attachm...