Robotics Competitions

Hello there Steemit! Today I'm posting about what we've been up to recently in robotics again. The robot I will be showing you today is the one that we used for our competition earlier in the year.

As mentioned in my previous post, my team and I participate in the FLL (First Lego League) competitions. In these competitions, we need to build a robot that completes a number of tasks to gather the most points before the time ends. We are given 2 minutes 30 seconds to complete as many as possible. If we touch the robot once it has left base, a small circle in the bottom corner of the map, we are given a 5 point deduction and lose any points we would have gained if we brought a piece back to base. The robot cannot be made to intentionally destroy the board, and must not be more than 12 inches tall. It can be as wide or long as you like as long as it fits in base.

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This is our competition board. We use this board and the challenges on them to gain points and display our robots performance, and if the judges liked it enough along with our topic project, we can advance into the next competition. We start off by going to a local competition and can win a ticket that allows us to go to the state competition. At the states, one team is given a ticket to go to nationals, and from there internationals.

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This is a top view of our competition robot. We included a handle attached to it for easy carrying. The gears on the sides are attached to motors under the robot itself and we use them for a special part of our robot: pinless attachments! We use a design that allows our attachments to slip right onto the top of the robot and connect to the gears that are connected to turn parts on the attachment. Although I do not have a picture of the one I am about to describe, it was our first attachment that we made and got us up to 80 points!

In the middle of the robot, there is a Gyro Sensor which is used for almost all of our programming. It allows us to get exact movements of the robot and make sure that the robot runs perfectly straight. On the top left and right of the robot are the gears that I described earlier. The handle is the blue in the middle, and the brain, the EV3 brick we use, is attached to the back. We used frames to create the part that holds the attachments, so we can easily slip them on and off. The attachment that I mentioned earlier was a square about the same size as the robot, but slightly bigger so that it can attach to the robot with parts that stick out. On it was a container that held the "water" that was used to complete a challenge for 30 points, a one-way hook to grab a "broken pipe" for 30 points, and an attachable piece that held a "tripod" in place to get either 15 and 20 points. This was the first attachment that we used and allowed us to get up to 80 points in the first 25 seconds of the match. The robots design is key to this because the attachment only fits on this exact robot.

This is the bottom of the robot. We use 4 Large EV3 Motors, 2 of them to move the robot and 2 of the to control the gears above, which control the attachments. We use 2 Ball Bearings in the back for symmetry and weight distribution so that the robot doesn't tip over.

This here is an image of the robot's brain, the EV3 Brick, which is what allows us to program it and connect motors and sensors to it. These here are the ports for the motors. A and B are connected to the bottom and and is what moves the robot, and ports C and D connect to the motors that control the attachment gears.

The final image I'll be showing you today is the mechanism that connects the motors to the top of the robot and moves the gears. We use two gears to turn the orientation of the axle movement. The white parts that are there are all actually beams that have holes in the middle of them so that the axle can connect both of the gears together.

Of course we can't forget about our core values! Without these, the FLL concept would not be the same!

1. We are a team
2. We do the work to find the answers together with our coaches.
3. Nobody has all of the answers: We work together.
4. We honor the spirit of friendly competition.
5. What we discover is more important than what we win
6. We share our experiences with others.
7. We display gracious professionalism and coopertiton (cooperative competition)
8. We have fun!