In Leaps and Bounds

I am so excited about what we have been doing with the robot.  About two weeks ago, we built a model robot and were able to solve most of the missions with it.  Unfortunately, the robot was not stable enough nor built in such a way that would allow us to turn.  We decided to keep experimenting with that robot and to build another.  In my six years of experimenting with the LEGO robotics, I have found that the best turning design is a four-wheeled drive robot.  Using that information, we set out to build a four-wheeled drive robot using the NXT robots and parts.  It was pretty hard, but we finally came up with a solution.

Our robot is a much more structurally sound and can turn a lot better.  One of the major problems that we have with this robot, though, is that it cannot make a pivot turn successfully.  Whenever we program it to do so, the robot "dances" and shakes and cannot turn accurately.  Fortunately its arc turn is relatively small and will do the job that we need.  

Another good thing about the robot, is that it is much smaller than the previous one and that it has a lot of connection points for arms and bumpers.  This will be very useful in the future as we solve the other missions.  Our next step is to build a gear locked arm since our arms keep sliding.

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